Apricity
by Mrs Fruitcake
Summary: Alex is allowed to return to Fenchurch East, and into a trap set for her and Gene Hunt. GALEX follows on from the previous stories I've written. Please read and review.
1. Chapter 1

**Hi there, this is the final in my A2A series** **of six connected stories. (The others are in order: London Fields, Playing with the Big Boys, And if I Start a Commotion, In Paradise, and Walk into the Twilight. They all follow a plot arc that ends here with Apricity :)**

_**I**_

Evan White ***.

At this moment on a cold but fine morning, Evan White held the car door open meekly as he waited for Alex Price to finish her tantrum and slam the front door shut.

Evan White, a man with three asterisks next to his name in the Actaeon file – what did that mean? That he had helped kill her parents? That he might have been responsible for her own death but for an escaped balloon?

"Come on, Alex," he remonstrated, and his voice was just as she remembered, never raised to her even at her worst stroppy moments.

Watching from the car at the nudge of the corner, the street where she'd lived with Evan after her parents' deaths, Alex Drake wondered what was annoying Alex Price this morning. She certainly couldn't remember what the reason was, but she recognised that look of hysterical tension as Alex Price got into the car and belted herself in.

"Make it click, every trip," she murmured sympathetically as Evan stood hands in pockets for a brief moment, looking up into the sky where the clouds threatened morning showers. Sympathetic at his stress as Evan crossed around the front of the Ford – _another _bloody blue Ford – and opened his own door. Suddenly he looked her way and Alex sank down - "shit" - glad of a fast-moving car that passed by her own on the corner and provided some cover.

Evan got into the car and soon drove off.

"How could you be involved in all this?" She stared ahead, unblinking. "You are a good person. You are a good person."

* * *

"Last I heard, birds weren't into reading Viz so get that pile of rubbish off Drake's desk." Hunt kicked Jimmy's bin over as he walked past, hands scrummed down in pockets. In the same foul mood as when the team had worked through the night to dress CID for Lord Scarman's visit.

Ray pretended to be absorbed in the file notes about a series of fights at the Woolwich docks. Stuffed if he'd lift a finger to tidy the office just because Drake was swanning back into tomorrow morning. One glare at Chris stifled his inclination to get up and help either. _Don't you think about it._ Drake had been gone a bare six weeks or so, and now she was bloody back and it was like Lady Di – Princess Diana, Ray corrected himself – was about to pay them a visit. And all because, if the rumours and Chris' half-witted deductions were true, Hunt had pulled the snotty cow on their trip up North after Christmas.

Ray knew he wasn't the only one. They could each imagine the look of triumph on her face as she made her grand entrance back into second in command. Bloody hell, he could hear the superior tone in her voice going through his head. _We did just bloody fine without her too. _

And maybe it wouldn't have been so fucking annoying if Hunt wasn't acting like the Manc Lion on tenderhooks – _I mean tenterhooks_ – and Jimmy, Biro, Lewis and the rest of the soft bastards weren't running themselves ragged to do his bidding. He'd had enough. "Guv, how about we get a drink and let this lot clean their own mess up."

Hunt turned slowly.

"Just a quiet one like, Guv."

* * *

The knot of anticipation she'd gone to bed with - it was still there in the early morning when she woke, sweating. In a few hours she would get dressed, lock the door to her flat and walk across the road to Fenchurch East. Back through those heavy swinging doors into the white brightness of CID, her desk under the chess-board black and white ceiling panels. The oppressive feel of the dark wood walls all around. It was her creation, her memory turned into a stage set.

Had she just heard a noise? Alex sat up in her bed, the blood thumping through her head in the silence as she strained to hear. This happened a lot now – waiting for something to happen.

It had only been two weeks since she and Hunt returned from Lancashire, but she'd had little to do between the panic of that trip to Bowland and her return to CID. Today. You could almost grow mad waiting for something to happen.

Two weeks ago, she'd opened the note from CS Paulson welcoming her back to her old position as DI at Fenchurch East. Who had wanted her back? The same people who had tracked them through Bowland? The same people who set up a roadblock to trap them? The same people now setting another trap?

_This world is my creation_, she thought, but tonight it was no comfort. She wasn't in any control of it, and she no longer really thought it contained a puzzle she needed to work out. She could be hurt in this world, killed, prevented from returning to Molly.

Yeah, but Alex could be surprised in this world … the LED lights on the digital clock blinked green in the dark. Two AM.

Surprised because she hadn't woken from a nightmare of pursuit by MI5 or the death of her parents, not about about Evan White. She'd been tangled in the sheets with Hunt, reaching for him in her dream. Her limbs, as she sat back now against the head board of the bed, itched with that frustration - time and again in the dream she hadn't got far with him, though she'd wanted to. Kept going back to the mirror in that stuffy hotel room in Bowland, kept looking from the mirror to see his eyes on her in the dark.

But it had felt so real that she looked down at the film of sweat on her breasts, and wiped a tear away from her eyelashes.

* * *

A tear on his cheek – wiped it away quickly – a tear of tiredness as he sank further into the cream vinyl seats of the booth. It was a club but Hunt was wishing they'd turn the music down. _In touch with the ground / I'm on the hunt I'm after you / Smell like I sound, I'm lost in a crowd / And I'm hungry like the wolf._ Wished the people swaying around him, dancing too close to the booth, would disappear. But the flashing blue, green, red lights hadn't relented a bit. Ray slumped down across the booth with a pushy young secretary-type who had been pestering them all night to dance.

"It's early," Ray protested as Hunt tried to get out from the table. "You can't leave now."

Ray was doing what blokes did. Getting him drunk enough to be hammered at work in the morning. Hammered enough to take home the girl Ray had been lining him up with, thrusting at him all night.

"Don't tell me what to do...." But he returned to his place, crowding Chris into the middle of the booth. A few hours ago, he'd been just as eager as the other two to make a night of it. Another bottle of cheap champagne was placed on the table and he barely knew himself to be drinking it. He barely heard or saw anything until the music tapered off into a slow dance and somehow Hunt roused himself to go the bathroom. Who the fuck wanted to look at ugly people going at it hammer'n tongs right in front them?

There was silence between Ray and Chris for only a minute.

"Bet you're glad Shaz's not round to put the handbrake on," Ray fairly spat across the blonde girl.

"I don't see why she shouldn't have come." Chris was just as drunk as the rest of them, but not in a fun way. "I promised her when I got back from Clitheroe that we'd go out on the town, so she's going to chuck me when she hears about us leaving her out tonight."

"That reminds me.... What did Drake and the Guv get up to in Clitheroe?" Chris had been ridiculously coy about the exact circumstances of Hunt's suddenly appearance at his parents' caravan park. "Come on, no secrets between armed bastards. I want a lot of details."

"I have no idea," Chris admitted, squirming as the girl slipped her arm about his waist. She had pretty feathery hair gelled up to a sharp edge at the top of her head. "The only thing I know is that they stayed one night and they stayed in the same caravan although we gave them two caravans." He could barely recall, but there had been more to it … uncomfortable silences, looks between them, a glimpse of Hunt streaking across their lawn in the dead of night as Chris awoke to the sound of an owl and peered out his bedroom curtains.

"I bloody knew it."

"Knew what?" Hunt had returned suddenly, surveyed both their faces, knew at once what they had been jabbering about. Fucking Chris.

"Your caravan romance," the girl chipped in brightly.

* * *

_Hello Jimmy. Viv, hello. Biro, Lewis, Rodney, Ray, Chris. _

They could barely acknowledge her as she sat down, a definitive staccato movement to let them know this was her desk and she 'd reclaimed it. The room was fugged with cigarette smoke – CID covering up the silence with heavy-duty puffing. Ray nodded to her and then turned on the cassette player. Only Viv flicked Alex a smile as he presented her with the triplicate forms for getting after-hours access to CID premises.

It was nine am sharp. Hunt was in his office with the door shut. She was aware they hadn't met since she'd pushed him out of her flat after their return from the North. Two weeks later, those days seemed dream-like, both the running from MI5 and the sex. Maybe two weeks' space was all it took for them to be able to pretend it hadn't happened.

She'd spent the waiting time trying to concentrate just on the two monumental points – that Evan White seemed to be implicated in her parents' death, and that she and Hunt were now targets. Matthew Mantle had seemed so certain about that.

But her thoughts were still tangled as she opened her desk drawers and found her collection of pens and notepads. Nothing was clear. It felt like she'd been in stasis.

_Be cool. _She looked across at Chris and Ray. What would a cool person do? Pretend to catch up on the important cases CID were looking into? Chat with the team? Slink off to the kitchen for a cup of wretched instant coffee? Barge into Hunt's office and demand some work....

No need. The Guv opened his office door, his eyes shifting slightly as he saw Drake at her desk. If he hadn't felt like a capsizing ship he would have put on a front and a show for the lads. His eyes were tearing up again – bloody embarrassing. Must've looked like he'd been crying.

_Welcome back, Drake. It's amazing that we've been able to solve cases without your insightful lady comments, but we've pulled off a few miracles. _But he bit his lip, glowering at the queasiness in his stomach. _I must look like five kinds of shit._

Drake frowned and glanced across to Ray and Chris. Were they drunk too? Hunt obviously was, wearing a crumpled navy suit and white shirt, a tie loosely knotted. _You look dirty and seedy_, she thought ... but the flop of hair about his face as he clapped his hands together and shooed off Biro and Rodney to investigate the morning's muggings. The roughness of his features and the scars about his mouth. She'd lain in that bed in the caravan, touching those scars idly with her thumb.

He walked between the desks – Ray had changed the tape in the cassette player. Fucker.

_All I'm saying, it takes a lot to love you  
All I'm doing, you know it's true  
All I mean now, there's one thing  
Yes one thing that turns this grey sky to blue  
That's the look, that's the look  
The look of love_

Ah. Clapping his hands together again. He stopped by her desk, eyes looking past her. "Viv gave you them forms and all that?'

Yes.

"Got everything you need?"

Yes.

_Well obviously we both know it. Need to stay away from each other. _Playing it cool was about more than quelling the embarrassing rumours going around the team – it was about knowing she was marked and that any reckless action could hurt them both. But Hunt met her gaze long enough... she couldn't hide, didn't want to, that she was glad to be back. And Hunt looked grim but jingled the coins in his trouser pockets as he walked out through the swinging doors.


	2. Chapter 2

_**II**_

Chief Superintendant Anthony Paulson's hand fluttered over the file as Hunt and Drake sat before him. They were side by side – Hunt leaning on his wrist as if trying to prop himself awake and Drake legs crossed and eyes expectant. "We have to be careful about how these matters are handled, you understand. These two in the file might be illegal and trying to avoid repatriation to the Soviet Union, but we still have to be conscious that the embassy is ready and willing to blow small incidents into international problems."

"Ahh sir, could you explain a little more about the case?" Alex asked. Paulson's outburst was the first thing he'd said after ushering them into his office and shaking her hand in welcome back to the Met. Of course he was nervous, she thought. Six weeks ago he'd politely threatened her future as a police officer if she didn't go quietly off to sift files for Julian Marbury in Lambton.

Hunt was thinking more or less the same – except he knew that Paulson couldn't look at the two of them without seeing those black and white photographs sent to him anonymously by Dorothy Lange. "Compromised" – that was the word Paulson had used at the time before ordering that the matter never be raised again. _Well it got a little more compromised later on, Your Worship_.

"Oh sorry, yes well the matter was drawn to our attention a couple of days ago. Two sailors from the Soviet Union have disappeared from a fishing vessel that is currently docked down at Woolwich." Paulson paused to open the file before deciding not to pronounce the names of the two Russians listed in it. "Yes, the ship is the _Yevgeny Basarov_ and it has been in dock for repairs for a month. You know how those rusty old fishing buckets get – barely seaworthy. Not like when I used to race skiffs every weekend and half the jolly time was spent cleaning and scrubbing...."

"I know what you mean," Hunt interrupted and they both turned to look at him in astonishment. "I raced dinghies as a child. Up in the Lakes District. But Sir, you were talking about these missing sailors?"

"Oh yes." Paulson collected his thoughts quickly. "Yes, it's not even that they're just missing, although we do need to get them sent back to Moscow as soon as possible. We've got reports that they and other Russian sailors have been causing damage around Woolwich and becoming aggressive." He stiffened as the door opened and Adrien Vanderzee walked into the room and strolled past them to the window. "Sir, I've just been briefing DCI Hunt on these incidents at Woolwich; he understands it's a priority right now."

Vanderzee nodded without expression and let an itchy silence drift on. Finally, "I do not want this to go any further than the couple of fights that have already happened down there. These things get out of hand too quickly." He barely looked their way, not at Drake at all. "Put your team down there, find any of these Sovs causing trouble and get them processed out of the country." He picked up a random report from Paulson's desk and flicked through it.

Hunt reached across the table for the file on the sailors.

"Thank you, Hunt," Paulson smiled. "I know you'll deal with this quickly. Hopefully you're refreshed from your Christmas holidays. You were up North I hear? Didn't manage to get out and do any sailing while you were up there?"

Hunt's hand froze over the file. Paulson's expression hadn't changed, and he noted how Vanderzee didn't turn from the window, but stared even more intently down at the report. Vanderzee's eyes didn't move. "No, Sir." He took the file. "I did get out into the woods though for some exercise. Up in Bowland, if you've ever been there."

"No I haven't – and I had no idea you were a nature lover, Hunt."

"Oh well, Sir. I do love the empty places … although it was surprisingly crowded out there in the woods." He followed Alex out the door and shut it behind them. Not until they reached the lifts did she turn to him, arms crossed, eyebrows raised.

"Dinghies in the Lakes District? Were you sailing the _Swallow_ or the _Amazon _and were the Railway Children also involved?"

"I had to shut him up somehow."

"Well I'm glad that you didn't start telling him about that time you found a magical kingdom in the back of your wardrobe." He didn't say anything, didn't smile. _Oh whatever. _Alex pressed the lift button again.

* * *

"I thought we were at war with these blokes. Why are we letting them get through the front door?" Ray had brought his notebook with him, and he'd written down the names of the two sailors gone missing. As he climbed out of the Quattro, he practised the two Russian names in his head. Arkady Levitsky. Ilya Solovyov. "How am I supposed to write the names of any witnesses if they're Sovs? Do they use the same letters as us if I have to spell their names out?" He continued to fret loudly as he followed Hunt and Chris through the dockyards at Woolwich, picking their way among towering blocks of empty containers that implied this particular dock area of the Thames was on its last legs.

Hunt found the _Yevgeny Basarov _docked midway down a long empty wharf. Paulson had been right about it being a rust-bucket. Smelly too. A month of sluicing hadn't erased the smell of the blood, fish guts and – he passed a drunken man slouched over in a chair beside the ramp leading up into the ship – vodka and sick.

"Chris, have a word with this one," he nodded back towards the comatose man.

"How'm I supposed to get anything out of him?" Chris bent down to the man, wincing because his jeans were tighter after a week of his mother's puddings and fry-ups.

"Give him another drink, talk dirty to him, I don't care." Hunt disappeared up into the deck. With Ray behind him, he slowly walked around, port to starboard, noting the flinty chop of the Thames and the film of oil floating around the stern of the boat. "Hey up!" He yelled down through an opening into the dark hold.

"Maybe they've all run away." Ray put his notebook back into his jacket as Hunt climbed a short flight of steps up into the bridge. Inside were two men smoking as they leaned against a table covered in charts, one dressed only in a grubby polo shirt and the other proudly bare-chested, his pectorals and stomach covered in a faded tattoo depicting a red-head in a see-through Russian army uniform.

"Metropolitan Police just stopping by for a friendly chat," Hunt bent to enter the cabin. "We're looking for two ship-mates of yours," and he motioned to Ray to speak their names. "Are you in charge of these blokes or what?"

"The captain is not here," the man in the polo shirt said, contemptuous as Hunt squinted in his effort to decipher his thick accent. "I am not in charge, I just work with those men on the deck."

Hunt could barely see out of the cabin's windows, so begrimed with salt spray. "Do you know about the trouble Arkady and Ilya are in? We've got reports that they've been getting into fights and making a nuisance of themselves. And now they're gone and disappeared. They won't be turning up in a packet of fish fingers, hopefully?" Hunt offered them a new cigarette to break the silence. "I can bring you down to Fenchurch to talk if a night in our lovely cells would aid your memories...." The men hadn't moved – they sized up Ray who stood nervous and shifty in the doorway. They heard and felt Chris clambering up the gang-plank, and noted how Hunt turned his back to them, casual and at ease.

"This man don't speak English so I will tell you what we both know. We have been here for a month and no one has paid us for three months. We are all angry and no one here or at the company that owns this boat will tell us what is going on." The man in the polo shirt took Hunt's proffered cigarette the second time. "If you want to know about fighting and all that, talk to the owners. They're the ones causing trouble for us."

"What kind of trouble?"

"Arkady asked about our money and they sent down some men to beat him as a lesson to us." The man spat on the cigarette butt and flicked it through an open window in the cabin. "Maybe you should go look in the hospitals."

* * *

"I didn't know what smelled worse – that hold where they stored the fish or the toilet." Chris sat on the edge of Shaz's desk, playing with the porcelain unicorn that he'd given her for Christmas. "Luckily we legged it along the docks and popped into the Admiral Lygon for a quick one. No one wanted to talk to us in there either about them Rusky fellas."

Shaz murmured absently, watching Hunt watch Alex Drake as she wandered past the desks into the kitchen. She nodded to Chris, her eyes still fixed on the Guv as he followed Drake into the kitchen a minute later. It had been like that all afternoon. Just as the ceiling of CID looked like a checker board, here were Drake and Hunt moving like game pieces around each other. So obvious too, she rolled her eyes, not noticing that Chris was closely watching her and frowning as if he'd said something wrong. So obvious that something had happened between them up in Clitheroe although blimmin' Chris hadn't been nosy enough to actually find out what. Still what he **did** know – that Hunt hadn't slept in the caravan – seemed conclusive enough.

Half an hour before now Hunt had given the team their orders – fan out around the docks at Woolwich. "Search the other ships, the pubs, the doss houses, everywhere," he'd said. "Find them missing sailors or find someone who knows where they've gone to ground." Shaz had noted how he'd given DI Drake no orders, left her at her desk, and even more curiously, DI Drake hadn't complained about it. _Why aren't they both out there together like they would be normally?_ _Is there any way I can get closer to the kitchen without it being obvious that I'm trying to listen? _

No, she concluded, not without having to start up a conversation with Biro. And then Shaz tuned back into Chris. Huh?

"I was just asking why you haven't taken your unicorn home yet? I was thinking, you could start a collection of 'em, like my mum."

Hmmm. Alex had told Shaz all about Chris's mum.

* * *

"Oh sorry." She'd backed right into him as she turned away from the kitchen bench with her cup of tea in one hand and a teaspoon of sugar in the other. Hunt didn't immediately move or give her room to get around him. In fact he must have been too close to start with. Smell your hair close.

"You've spilt the sugar," Alex murmured, laughing in that nervous way she occasionally had and looking down at her empty teaspoon, and the white granules running down her blue silk top. "Pour some sugar on me."

Hunt's eyes widened – she reddened.

"In the name of love? Def Leppard? Bad song? I guess it's not out ... here yet, never mind." She flung the spoon behind her into the sink and winced at the clatter against the stacked dishes in it "Can do without the sugar anyway. Lifetime on the hips and all that."

"Your hips are...." _just fucking fine, _he finished off silently, stepped back so she could get around him. It was a small room and yet she didn't take a seat at the table or disappear back to her desk. Instead he reached around her, looking away virtuously but his arm still grazing her breasts. And he took the sugar caddy and a great ridiculous heaped spoon of sugar, stirred it into her tea. The tea mug was between them, their heads bent as if watching the sugar dissolve were the most fascinating thing in the world.

And then he walked out back to the team, yelling out to Biro to get his fat grey arse out of his desk and off to Woolwich.


	3. Chapter 3

_**III**_

Evan White had quit his job with her parents on the day of their murder, but that hadn't stopped him falling on his feet, Alex reflected as she crossed a Kensington street towards the dignified row of cream and white terraced houses.

At the time of their death she hadn't thought anything of it, but now it was a legitimate question … the Prices had built a thriving practice, clients, publicity. It could have all passed to Evan. But he'd joined the legal practice Devises, Palmer and Jennet instead.

She stopped at the steps leading up to the practice; she had visited it so many times, revelling in her status as Evan's god-child, fed biscuits by the legal secretaries, indulged even though the staff and partners must have found it tiresome to have her hanging around after school. But Evan had shielded her from all this – especially so as he moved into a partnership and could do as he wanted. How many times had she opened the door onto a client meeting without a thought or a knock? How many times had he quickly given into her pleas to go to the pictures or to the ice rink in the afternoon, telling his sour secretary to cancel meetings?

One foot on the bottom step, but Alex heard Evan's voice behind her, almost guilty as she turned on her heel. She laughed nervously – recognised the puzzlement in his expression, but something else new. He wasn't pleased to see her.

"Alex, this is a surprise … a good one." His hair was cut a little shorter, his brief case new. His eyes darted up to the practice windows that looked down onto the street as if he worried about his colleagues seeing him with her. "Yeah...." He nodded a little as if waiting for her to respond.

"I wanted to...." It was like trying to like trying to grasp soap, getting him to stop and just look her in the eyes. "Catch up. Haven't seen you in so long, and I wanted to know how you were getting along. Obviously," – she gestured behind her – "pretty well. A better source of criminal justice clientele I think." Devises, Palmer and Jennet weren't known for taking on the firebrands – the protesting radicals, the bashed housewives, the angry young teenagers – who would call the Prices in the middle of the night from the likes of Fenchurch East CID.

"Yes, it was a surprise to be offered a place here." His hand worked the clasp to his brief case continually as he spoke. "I don't know that I'll ever be visiting your place of work, I have to say." She could tell Evan was right then thinking of the video tape they had watched in Hunt's office, its destruction, and his leaving through the swinging doors forever tied to young Alex Price.

Hesitatingly she now suggested they meet that evening in a wine bar of his choosing, and Alex felt embarrassed at his rejection, the entire minute of prevarication and the hurried construction of an excuse that would prevent him from coming. _In your mind, you have gone up these steps, closed the door to your office and left me out here on the street._ She reached out for his arm. "We don't have to sit in a bar and drink. We could just talk. Anywhere."

"No." The shortest, sharpest tone she had ever heard from the man. "No," and he snapped the clasp to the briefcase. "No, I can't, I'm sorry." Surely Evan had been returning to his office, but now she watched him walk briskly away down the street, brushing his fringe from his eyes and soon he was out of sight around the corner.

* * *

"What do you call that shade?" Ray asked, holding out his hand and by extension the cigarette between his two fingers to Vanderzee's secretary as she snapped her compact closed and put her lipstick down.

"Craven temptress," Tracey said after squinting at the end of the lipstick.

"It suits you." Ray leaned over her desk, across the neatly stacked pile of typing that she had completed and the vase of carnations delivered personally that day by her electrician boyfriend. "Is that what you call a matte?"

Hunt looked through the open crack of the door from the hallway – Ray's leaning in was his cue and he burst through the door, waving a file in the secretary's direction as he headed towards AC Vanderzee's office. "Got that report for the Assistant Commissioner," he said without looking her way. He shut the door behind him, but through the blinds could see that Ray was sufficiently occupying her with his apparently insatiable curiosity about cosmetics.

Of course Hunt had been hanging around the floor for a good hour, knowing that Vanderzee and the other Met brass were being called down to brief the mayor about the progress in addressing Lord Scarman's report. The office was dark – Vanderzee always switched the lights off when he left, even if he was just visiting the bathroom. That suited him. The file contained audit information the AC had asked for on the number of car thefts committed around Fenchurch over the past year, and Hunt slapped it down on Vanderzee's empty in-tray. Then he strode around the desk and surveyed it. He gave himself another thirty seconds.

He smiled, thinking of that crude sketch he had drawn of Drake bent over a desk, that sketch he had carelessly crumpled and tossed in his rubbish bin, and how he had scrambled to remove it from the kitchen wall before she saw it. Bending and wincing now at the pain from an old football injury to his knee, Hunt poked into the rubbish bin beneath Vanderzee's desk. Fucking hell, _even his rubbish is neat; _not a stinking apple core to be found. He abruptly up-ended the contents of the bin into a plastic bag and swayed towards the door as he heard the secretary's voice rise in anger. Yep, definitely timed right. The charm of Ray Carling could be trusted for approximately a minute, and a minute only.

* * *

Typical. She snatched up the recorder and bug and left the dead batteries lying on the shelves in the equipment room. Heads bobbed up from desks as the doors into the office swung open and stayed up as Alex went around the back of Chris and abruptly pulled the tape recorder plug out of the wall. Took the batteries from it and went to her desk. Her head was down, and she didn't see the exchanged looks and Hunt peering through the blinds of his office as she tested the bugging device.

"What the f.u.c.k. was that about?" Lewis said when she'd gone again out the doors.

Hunt stood at his office door as they all turned to him, hands on hips. "Leave her be." Then he ordered Chris and Grainger off to Woolwich to help look for the two Russian sailors.

* * *

Ignoring Luigi's protests, he dumped the bag of rubbish down on a dining table. It was mid-afternoon and Luigi hadn't set up for dinner, but he remonstrated in gestures as the detritus spilled onto the floor.

"Calm down, or I'll tell the authorities about what's in the Bolognese special." Gene sat back and nodded to Ray to look through the contents of the bin.

"What am I looking for?"

Oh. He'd somehow forgotten that this idea about Assistant Commissioner Vanderzee was solely in his mind, and nothing more than a hunch. Hadn't told Ray, definitely not Chris. And not Drake. _Don't know what, but I know I'm onto something. _He rubbed his hands together, ordered a drink for them both and began sorting the rubbish.

It was that minute in Paulson's office, when Hunt had mentioned Bowland, and Vanderzee hadn't lifted his head from the report he'd pretended to be looking at. It was only a hunch.

* * *

When you'd had a few, the fact that Luigi liked to overheat the restaurant became more than a minor annoyance. Ray's cheeks were red, Hunt felt a sweat bead trickle slowly down his eyelid towards his lashes. It was almost as irritating as the stupid tape Luigi played in the late afternoons long after the lunch crowd left and only the day-time drinkers remained – today this meant him and Ray and bloody Alex Drake sitting alone at the bar.

She was sat with her back to them and she'd barely moved except to raise the glass to her lips. When he'd told Chris and Grainger to get down to Woolwich to look for the Russians, and the rest of the team to do as they liked, he'd expected they'd all disappear off home, and her too. But she had appeared here and she was still hanging about. _Well go on, Alex._ If she wanted him to come over, she had to let him know....

He'd found nothing of interest in Vanderzee's rubbish. No, he'd blown his one chance – not like he could use Ray again as a decoy to get into the man's office. It remained just a hunch about Vanderzee, a bad feeling.

Stupid Italian love songs. Love songs, but not lovely at all, he thought and at the 'eh' look on Ray's face knew that he'd just said that aloud. "Bollocks Italian music," he gestured towards Luigi himself sitting at a corner table frowning as he went through his accounts book. "They can't just **sing **the bloody song, can they?"

"Eh?"

Now Drake's head was practically on the bar – she was staring into the glass, shoulders sunk so low. He could ignore the fucking terrible music when she was there across the room lifting the glass idly as if studying the cloudiness of the Chianti.

"Eh?" Ray had slid down his chair to lean on Hunt's arm and Hunt now pushed him back upright. He studied Ray for a second, knowing him to be so drunk that he couldn't comprehend a word Hunt said. "It's a competition, Raymondo." He pointed the wine bottle towards the bar before pouring them both another. "Her and me. She can fucking tempt me all she wants with those boots and that new top she put on today" – for fuck's sake, he'd instantly noticed she was wearing something new – "but I am a rock."

"You're solid," Ray toasted him in a raised voice, and Alex finally looked over her shoulder towards them to see why he was shouting. "Steady on," Hunt said, and when he looked her way she'd turned back to the bar.

* * *

He could sit there well into the night, talking about her, probably insulting her in that way he had - always a challenge if she didn't like what he was saying - but she wasn't going to take him up on that challenge.

An hour later, when they both should have gone home, she felt him near her at the bar and looked into his eyes – pessimistic, quite gentle, not giving anything. "You alright, Bolly?" Luigi was a thoughtful, careless host – he filled their glasses again, even though Gene had his keys in his hand.

"You going home?"

"Back over the road for a bit. Got a few calls to make."

Oh. Heading back over the road to CID. Back to patrol his patch. _It's all you care about really_, she thought, downing the Chianti, but waited for a hand on her arm. A word. Just one word.

_Come home with me,_ she'd wanted to say. Why couldn't she say it? _I want to be with you again._

He shrugged and headed to the door. And she drank his glass too.

"It's a Greek tragedy set in an Italian restaurant," she mumured to Luigi, not caring how melodramatic she sounded. She had the bugging equipment in her bag, and tomorrow she planned to break into Evan White's house and plant it. But she still didn't want to believe it.

* * *

Morning sun flooded the room. Alex had left the curtains open in her drunken carelessness last night and she squinted at the feeble warmth thrown onto the bed. Flopped her hand down on the duvet every now and then and smoothed the fabric out, frowned that she had again woken from a dream about Hunt.

Waking up to the thought of him once was bad enough. But the dream had felt cloying, sticky in her mind so that she'd actually felt as if he'd been in the room with her all the night through. Or rather all night in that caravan in Clitheroe and the Throstle Inn – nothing prolonged but fleeting sensations of the cold in the caravan, the stuffiness of the Inn, the fear. Stupid little moments like Gene swearing as he hopped on one knee to hitch his trousers up his legs, lurching across the caravan as he kept coming back for another kiss.

Alex felt hot now with the sun growing in strength. That was wrong – the weather should be so chilly at this time of year, but she couldn't move, stalled by the effort to remember more about the dreams. Maybe stalled by the melancholy too. She was leaving – close to it. This world so full of signs was telling her this. Yet she wasn't seeing Molly in the shadows of the flat now, was no longer hearing her voice as she turned from the mirror. No, the only real things were feel the rough duvet in her hands, the weakening sun as it dipped behind clouds, Luigi vacuuming downstairs.

Should she feel guilty that she was dreaming about him, and not her daughter? The way he tried to keep his mouth grim and unemotional, even as he pressed his cheek into her hair and lifted her top over her head. Their fingers fumbling together to get his clothes off. A broken fly zip because he'd been mad to undo his trousers. Those couple of moments in the hotel room where he'd actually made a sound as he came. Let himself groan.

Without clothes he seemed much younger.

But that was her dream. Awake, it was not like they had needed to have a conversation about keeping away, keeping their hands off each other – it didn't seem a problem for him. Ignoring her, keeping a distance and focusing on the business with the two AWOL Russians-

Alex jumped at the first bell of the telephone and lunged for it. Felt instantly stupid because she'd be seeing him soon at CID.

"Hello?"

"Hello Alex." The caller's voice caressed the name 'Alex'. Just like he had when they'd last talked in the visiting room at the Scrubs and he'd leant into the glass. Boo! "Good to hear you, Alex." The space around his voice told her Layton was calling from a phone booth. Not that that meant anything. Alex waited, unsure whether the sun was really gone now behind the clouds or whether it was just Layton's breathing and the timbre of his voice that could make her feel so anxious.

"What do you want?" she said finally.

"I want to help you, Alex."

Silence. _Like you helped the Prices?_ Silence from him, then, "I don't know whether I love you or hate you, Alex. I don't know whether I hate you more than I hate him right now."

"Hate DCI Hunt?" She could just picture the pursing look on Layton's face as he whispered. "No I do know. He should have done what he promised."

For fuck's sake, but she bit down her anger. Calling Layton out had never done her any good, had it? The gun shaking in his hand, pointed at her, was in her mind as Layton breathed static down the phone line.

"Evan owes me. He should have repaid the favour I did him." Alex knew he'd hang up then – and he did – and she replaced the receiver carefully. The people listening in would have heard the whole thing so she was glad Layton hadn't gone further.


	4. Chapter 4

_**IV**_

A tip about the two missing Russian sailors had come in from one of Hunt's snitches and the team now fanned out across the docks at Woolwich. Biro examining a pile of old rubble for half an hour, a fag hanging by spittle alone from the corner of his mouth. Lewis sulking as he kicked a can along an empty stretch of grass between two warehouses.

Chris stepped off one of the many ships he'd boarded that morning. It was getting on for midday. He handed Hunt a plastic bag. "Found some weird looking mushrooms, but no one's talking about them missing Russkies. They're rude buggers – shouldn't have to let them into the country if they don't want to answer you back in yer own language."

Hunt squinted as the sun emerged in the low clouded sky. For some reason a helicopter kept buzzing overhead and he could have done without the constant sound of ravenous gulls fighting over a bag of chips. It was a Friday and the docks at Woolwich had the current of people going about their business in haste, anticipating the weekend calm ahead. "I'm about had it with getting the arse from these people." In one morning of canvassing the area – thoroughly, calmly and methodically as he'd planned it in his mind – he'd met more bloody Russians than any Englishman in his home country should have to.

"Good man, Chris." Gene patted him about the back roughly and turned to beckon Granger back to him. Drake had joined them and was sauntering along with Shaz – deep in conversation as they pulled a reluctant teenage boy along with them.

_You look rough_, he thought as he surveyed Alex from behind his sunglasses. She hadn't come into work that morning so she must have read the note on her desk from Granger that directed her to Woolwich.

Jimmy handed him some notes he'd taken in conversation with a wino who dossed in one of the falling-down warehouses along the docks. "What's this?"

"The chap said there's been a lot of new people along the docks lately. The Russian fellas been stirring it up and getting into difficulties with their managers. He says there was a major rumble a couple of days ago between the Sovs and a bunch of Scandis off the cod boats."

Hunt read through the notes. "Jimmy, you're 39 and you can't spell Norway. That's fucking poor. Now who's this little sod?"

"We found him hiding in the hold of that _Shangri-La_ boat over there?" Shaz pointed back down the line of hulks swaying against their moorings. "Do you think he fits the description? He don't have long hair like in the photo though."

The youth was indeed sporting a number one, but Hunt checked the photo ID for Ilya Solovyov and there was a match in the wan skin, dark lashes and in the pale blue eyes – same expression of alarm in them. Ilya's skin was so translucent you could see every vein in his neck.

"Bet you wish you were old enough to grow a beard, son. Now where's that trouble-making companion of yours? We've been looking for Arkady all week and Chris here is starting to smell like mackerel." Don't speak English? He got no reply from the teenager and so he motioned to Jimmy to put him in the squad car.

* * *

Alex and Shaz stood a little away as they continued the plodding search of the moored vessels. Of course Alex had only just joined them, cagey as to where she'd been that morning. Fresh in her head was the moment she'd broken into Evan's house. Stood in her own childhood front room again. This time she didn't walk up the stairs to her bedroom and pick through the memories. No, she had given herself only minutes to plant a bug on Evan's phone and leave.

"Gawd, ma''am. I hope we can get this search done and not have to come back here." Shaz had broken up two fights already that morning. Her uniform would need dry-cleaning, thanks to a flying bloody tooth.

Alex yawned and nodded sympathetically, hand over mouth.

"Did you not get any sleep?"

It wasn't the sleep, Alex thought. It was the dreams and for some reason she turned and found Hunt staring – staring as if he'd bloody been there. _But you were. _She spun on her heels at the sound of Ray – Ray shouting and a couple of men hurrying after him, also shouting. Gesturing too.

* * *

Ray had finally flushed out the crew boss for all these Russian vessels from their warehouses and he wasn't happy to have the Met crawling all over the docks.

"Very funny," Hunt said, poking the man in his chest. "Didn't we come into your office just an hour ago and you pretended you couldn't understand a word I was saying."

"We talked to your manager," the man spit out, his Russian accent strong, but his point clear. The other man was obviously paid protection and watched without emotion. "He promised us that you would be discreet. This fool –" the fool was Ray –"turned upside down a shipment that we promised would be in Birmingham tonight."

"It were like turning a barrel of rats. The Sovs all scuttered for it." Ray lit a fag and paced around him. "You told us a whole bunch of lies. Fuck's sake." _Fuck's sake_. You didn't get problems like this in Manchester. Why had Hunt brought them down here?

"I had your word..."

'Not mine!"

"…not disturb anything!" It was almost like the Russian was looking for some contract Paulson had signed. Hunt's blood was boiling, Alex could tell. She stepped in, seeing that it was about to turn very ugly – hands up in a propitiatory manner. "Sir, we just want to find the two men you contacted us about. If they are missing they may be hurt. Or they may have just run away, in which case we can't have them illegally in the country."

The man was obviously unused to dealing with women police officers – certainly not beautiful women. He remained silent for a moment. Then he swore and pushed her aside, making for his Rover.

* * *

"I like those gotcha moments best of all."

The moment Lewis had sprung the second sailor – the older man called Arkady Levitsky – from rooms above an outboard motor repair shop. It had taken the rest of the afternoon, but they'd got their man.

"Gotcha!" Ray repeated, smiling as he hauled Levitsky into the interrogation room to join Ilya Solovyov.

Alex barred the door before Hunt could follow them in. "You're not going to do that –" she nodded down at his clenched fists – "medieval stuff. They look like two scared men. One of them's just a boy."

"Them and their bum-fighting friends have turned that dock in Woolwich into the battle of fucking Stalingrad and I'm sick of it." But he stayed still.

"Gene." She suddenly heard the air-conditioning above them churn and groan to a halt. It cranked back into life, but the air grew stale and hot as she spoke. "Give them some decent food and ask them for their side of this. You saw that man at the docks. He wanted us all gone."

He glanced into the room – at the older man slumped in his chair, ignoring Chris's offer of a cigarette. The teenager, Ilya, was watching Hunt back. Expecting the worst.

"Alright, alright, Red Sonja. Ray, get them a pork pie sandwich each." He looked her way, lowered his voice. "Come and have a drink in my office."

* * *

Alex hadn't been in his office in weeks and she took a second before plonking herself down at the edge of his desk, glancing at the dust patterns behind the computer.

He poured her a drink. It had grown dark outside and the other members of the team drifted out the doors slowly – they'd waited a bit to see if he'd order them down to Luigi's and then trudged away to their buses or trains to Clapham.

"Thanks." Alex clinked the whiskey glass against his; some spilled out and she commented about the "ridiculously large amount".

Ah yeah. He fiddled with some papers. Having her in his office really did feel like they were doing something wrong. The place was no doubt bugged, and he saw her open her mouth to speak and then remember that fact.

Hunt thought momentarily about whether he'd attempt some small talk about the two Russians or just stare at her. Brazen it out. Why not? He felt a sour pleasure for having shown so much restraint these past few days as he came and went past her desk and she came and went out of the office as she liked, acting like her old mysterious self. A less sour pleasure too because sometimes he caught her looking at him from her desk with that intention in her eyes as if she wanted to speak.

A couple of times it had been close. CS Paulson introducing him to a new DI working over at Chigwell who wanted his help, and he'd shook the man's hand, all the time watching as she walked down the corridor before them, in that way she had when she nowhere specific to be. Her hips swayed. Just the way she'd turned her head briefly to the side to glance through the windows to the carpark below ... she'd sat on the bed in the Throstle, naked with the sheets around her waist, and turned that way to him as he put a fevered hand on her shoulder.

All she'd done was look down briefly into the carpark to see if it was raining, but it felt like the strike of a match.

"The air-conditioning's not working again, is it?" Alex could actually feel the room grow hotter as she shifted on the edge of the desk and noted the condensation on the whisky glasses. Gene toyed with a manila folder, knowing she was watching. Finally he opened it and showed her a crumpled piece of paper inside it. The only thing written on the paper was a telephone number. "Recognise it?"

Alex had always had a good memory for numbers, but this one meant nothing. Later, after she had put down the glass and gone from his office with a faint exasperation that he done nothing more than discuss the issue with the sailors, she dialled the number. Turned away from the lights of Hunt's office with the phone against her neck and waited while it rang.

"Why are you so predictable?" he whispered into her hair as he cut the call off and removed the receiver gently. "Your phone is bugged too."

_Gene_. He had pulled on his coat and walked through the swinging doors. Without a word, Alex followed him down the corridor past the interrogation room where Ilya sat looking at his dinner.


	5. Chapter 5

_**V**_

_Whatever game you're playing, it's a stupid one. _

Out from the oppressive heat of CID into the crisp winter night, she just stood on the street disbelieving as Hunt walked to his car. _He's looking back. Okay. Come on then._ But no, Hunt had retrieved a betting mag out of the passenger seat and he put it in a nearby rubbish bin. Got in the Quattro and drove off. He should have just given her the finger to complete the show. _I couldn't feel any more alone as it is, you bastard. _

Had she somehow assumed that Hunt'd jump at the chance to come back here with her? Well yeah, she had. _Arsehole._

_No, I'm the arsehole. The fool._ Serve her right for feeling so drunk with herself every time she recalled those hours they'd spent together. He'd surprised her, falling into a heavy sleep in that stifling hotel room and then only a bare hour or so later shaking her back to consciousness, kissing her and forcing his leg between hers before she knew where she was. Yeah, she'd felt powerful then...

She rolled her eyes now as the key stuck in her front door.

What the … she knew this flat now. Knew the stillness. There was no sound beside the thunder of blood in her head, but in the books on the coffee table had been disturbed. Alex felt clumsy as she sank to take off her boots. Someone was still inside. There! She heard a noise, and another. _They must have heard me come in, _she thought_. They don't care that I can hear._

Grabbing one of the boots, turning it in her hand so she could use the stiletto as a weapon, she sidled down the hall to her bedroom. The lamp light came on as she reached the door and Arthur Layton shifted his position on her bed, making himself comfortable. His head lowered, he looked up at her, like a fucking whipped dog. He stank.

* * *

"Can I have that?"

Chris had brought the two Russians a mince pie and two slices of bread each. Neither had touched their plates although Ilya looked ravenous. So he scooped out the meat into the bread and made himself a sandwich. Arkady Levitsky curled his lip a little at that.

"What?" Chris looked up, mince at the edge of his mouth.

"They don't like the way you eat any more than the rest of us," Ray sighed, sliding his cigarette packet back to them. "C'mon. Tell us your stories so we can book you and get home." The clock said it was now ten pm. Bloody air-conditioning. A bead of sweat trickled from Ray's hairline down to his jacket collar.

"Why'd you run away from your boat?" Chris asked Ilya. "Are you scared of them bosses down there that run the boats?"

"Shut up, Chris." Ray leaned forward. "You look frightened." Both of them did – in different ways. The older keeping every movement or sound in check in case he gave something away. The younger like he expected them to come at him with fists at any minute. "We can protect you." He turned around as he said it because the door opened and CS Paulson hustled in quickly.

"Oh, there you are. Where's DCI Hunt?" He didn't wait for a reply. "Doesn't matter. I'm glad you've found these two men. Their manager, Mr Lyubomodrove here, has been telling me that he'll take them back and put them on board a fishing boat tonight that's headed to Iceland. Good solution all round, I think." Paulson tapped the door impatiently; behind him Ray could see the man they'd had a stoush with at the docks earlier that day, and his minder.

"We haven't had statements from the men yet, sir." It didn't matter it seemed. Without listening to Ray's suggestion that they call Hunt, Paulson insisted that they be released there and then. _Fucksake_. Ray plodded down the hall to ask Viv for two release forms.

* * *

"Arthur." The name sounded manipulative as she said it – in her smooth half-whisper. "Arthur, what are you doing here?"

Unfinished business of course, his look said. The expression reminded her a little of the way he'd appeared at the docks – from 2008. Lines around the eyes – not madness exactly but he blinked too much even in this faint bulb light.

"This place is bugged," she gestured around her. She wanted to know what he'd come to tell her. Alex almost smiled as Layton held his hand out to show her the devices he'd found in her phone and hidden around the flat. Of course he'd found them.

"So you're not just an expert in making bombs then," she said, her voice harsher as she allowed herself to speak at full volume. She was hovering wearily at the door in her own flat. With Layton here, it was like **she** were the intruder.

He moved suddenly to the window. With the look on his face, she knew he would have spent hours going through her possessions, opening her fridge, looking into the wardrobe.

"I'm surprised you never found out that Evan sprang me from Wormwood Scrubs the day you visited me," Layton said. "He was coming in and you were going out."

"I knew that." Alex entered the room a little. She stopped herself from calling Tim her father. "You were freed by Evan on behalf of Tim Price and you repaid him by making a bomb so he could kill himself and his family." She hoped that the matter-of-fact way she spoke would encourage Layton to continue.

"But you didn't know that Evan gave me the instructions. His car, the tape." Layton said. "I chose the song though. Ashes to ashes."

Why would Evan do that? She forced herself to remain calm, her voice unthreatening. She remembered when she had called him a 'loser'. How that had back-fired... "Did Evan know? I think he might have been just the messenger maybe." So wrong to be saying this out loud when it just seemed to feed Layton. But he only looked thoughtful.

"You think he is harmless."

"He's a good man." He had raised her and he had helped raise her own daughter. _Molly_, she thought.

Layton put the bugs down on the bed and crossed into the darkest corner of the room, away from the light cast by Luigi's signage outside and the street lighting. He spoke much more freely now that he was in the shadows and she couldn't really look at him. "He took me to see Mr Price and we sat down in a park. Evan was there in the background. I made Price tell me why he wanted to kill his family." Alex couldn't see but she could tell Layton was smiling to himself. "He pointed the finger at Evan White. He called him a snake. I should have listened."

_Why?_

"Evan promised me that he would help me get back to where I was. Before you ruined it, _Alex_. And after the car blew and the little girl escaped, he made me promise again. But he didn't help me. Look at me."

_But why? "_Why did he call Evan a snake?"

Thud. There was a thud against her door – almost a knock, but not quite. Layton bolted from the shadow and down her hall before she could react. As she called out for him to stop, he shouldered through the door past Hunt and down the stairs to Luigi's.

_What the_, Hunt mouthed as he spun and staggered down after him.

* * *

"It's a bit late for gentlemen visitors."

Alex reached the top of the street steps and gasped as she looked around. Empty both ways. She yelled out in frustration, rounded on him, fists clenched. "What do you want?!" She had another look – it was futile – for Layton and rounded on him again. "You bloody drove off, and now you're back. Why?!"

"Settle down."

Alex pushed past him to the steps down to Luigi's again. "I've got to..." She had to get back to the receiver in her bag so she could listen to Evan. She hadn't turned it on yet. Maybe... Ignoring the diners, Luigi, Hunt, she retreated to her flat. Slammed the door and felt around in her bag for it. Fumbled with the light switch when she couldn't find the receiver in her bag.

"I know what you're looking for," Hunt said, behind her. She turned, jumpy, shouting at him as she flung the bag on a chair. He didn't come closer – he backed off.

"I ain't giving it back to you."

"You went through my bag?" Alex advanced and grabbed at him, stuffing her hands into the pockets of the coat she had bought him in Manchester, hands up against his chest as she felt the insides too. "Where is it? Why are you ruining this for me?"

"When are you going to start trusting me, Alex? When we're both fucking dead?"

_Layton was going to tell me._ She backed off now, panting, hand on her mouth. "Get out. Get out."

* * *

Ray Carling jumped a good metre and a half from the top of the wire fence down onto hard concrete. Shaz had scrambled up the fence too and he reached back to haul her to the ground too. She decided to ignore the unnecessary amount of time his hand had been on her arse. Need to be quiet now. It didn't have to be said.

They were in the yards around Lyubomodrov's warehouse. His fleet of fishing boats were moored out on the docks beyond and she could see them swaying in the gentle breeze.

Shaz frowned, waiting for Ray to take a step. First thing that morning he'd come into the office – she the only one in that early on a Saturday morning – and told her he was troubled.

"Them Sov boys – it weren't right just letting them go off. We never got to hear their story. Didn't it seem to you like that crew boss was a scumbag?" Sucked on his cigarette and paced around her desk. Said he'd been troubled all night at Paulson''s order to let Arkady Levitsky and Ilya Solovyov go so quickly. Especially the boy with his expression that seemed to convey that he had expected nothing better from the Police.

"I want to go back there and have a look."

"Woolwich?" They'd all agreed yesterday that it was a great thing that they were shot of trawling Woolwich.

"You and me," he'd nodded enthusiastically and the fact that it was Ray – and Ray was being nice to her – had made Shaz agree to it. Now they were here, and it seemed quiet enough for a Saturday morning. The usual people wandering around beyond the perimeter of the yards. Down-at-heels men off looking for a cheap breakfast, carrying the paper folded under their arms and whistling. Giving the girl in the copper uniform and the big bloke a cursory glance.

They both went quietly through the yard and peered through the windows of the warehouse. Ray froze and ducked onto his knees at the sight inside. A crowd of men gathered around in a circle – the two Sovs were lying in the middle of the circle, covering their heads as they expected blows to start raining down.

"Shit, shit. We need back-up!" Ray scrambled around the corner of the building straight into Mr Lyubomodrov.

* * *

"I don't know why they had to call us all in – I was having a nice dream about Metal Mickey." Chris yawned as he joined the Guv on the steps into CID.

"Knowing you, Christopher, I'm sure that's..." Hunt's face fell at the great tangle of men spread down the hall and into the CID office. Men shouting in Russian, a bloke trying to wrestle his way out of a headlock. A row of chairs upended... Ray had said nothing about this in his hurried phone call. From behind the front desk Viv yelled, "CS is looking for you, Guv. Guv!"

A brawl started – there were dozens of blokes. And dozens of coppers. Had Ray called in the entire Fenchurch East squad? He barged past the brawlers and Chris lurched into the middle of them, falling into the scrap and calling out for help. Oh fuck. He took in the swell of blokes being led down into the cells, and Ray's voice somewhere, yelling. He saw the two Sovs – Levitsky and Solovyov – sat at Drake's desk, heads bowed. How'd that happen between him leaving work and now? Fuck – he saw CS Paulson in the midst of a bunch of suits, all standing around by the entrance to his own office. In a heated argument – Paulson's eyes were bulging again – with a bald man.

Paulson saw him and rushed over. "DCI Hunt – there are no words to the kind of trouble you are in!"

There were no words Hunt could hear – everything about him was at fever pitch. The shouting – the shoving men, cops and fucking Sovs, the oppressive heat. He grabbed Ray by the shoulders. "What have you done?" He ignored Paulson and shoved Ray into his office.

Banged the door shut. Out there, the team tried to remonstrate with the brass, and herd off the Sovs. Drake had come in. Jimmy, Biro, Lewis. Rodney must have taken part in the arrests – his eye was swelling, dripping blood. "What?" was all he could get out. Through the glass he could see the crew boss poking an accusatory finger Drake's way – could make out the word "persecution" from his lips.

Ray limped to a seat. "They were going to beat those two Sovs. I had to arrest them all. It just got out of hand." He followed the sweep of Hunt's arm. "There were more than we realised. God, it's so bloody hot in here."

"You know we were supposed to keep this one civil?"

"Yeah, but It were too late by then. That bastard crew boss fucker punched me in the head after I radioed for back-up."

"What happened?" What **fucking** happened? He caught his leg on the file cabinet and he tensed up. Almost calmed himself and then turned back to hammer the cabinet with kicks. Didn't stop until Ray went to the blinded windows. "Fuck!"

* * *

As she walked down the stairs, it was funny how the malfunctioning air-conditioning had created great pockets of heat. Here in the stairwell, in the interrogation room where Ray had been sent to calm down after he tried smash Mr Lyubomodrov in the face. In Hunt's office where he'd been sequestered with Vanderzee and Paulson for a good hour.

Vanderzee had come down to CID, his face taut and grey. Obviously he'd run down the stairs from the top floor. Like an avenging god from Olympus, she'd thought.

Now Hunt had disappeared from his office.

Had he been fired? None of them knew for Vanderzee and Paulson had swept out as fast as they came in. Nothing said, and Hunt had given the file cabinet another good kicking before walking out without a word. The Russians had been let go too – carried off in the vans back to Woolwich and their fishing vessels. She had looked into the eyes of Ilya as he was led away to sit among them in the back of a van.

She came to the bottom of the stair-well – the basement of CID and she went through the doors into the warren of small offices, research rooms, cleaners' cupboards that served as convenient hiding spots. Everyone got in trouble with upstairs sometimes. Everyone needed to hide sometimes.

Hunt looked up from a desk in the research room, a half-empty bottle of whisky surrounded by folders someone had been too lazy to file properly. He seemed calm enough as she came in quietly and shut the door. God, it was hotter in here than in the stairwell. And he was sweating as he put down the notepad he'd been doodling on. His feet up on the desk. "I'm not open for business right at this moment," he said tiredly.

Alex had taken the opportunity of his absence, the general pandemonium in the office, to look through his office for the bugging device he'd taken from her bag. She'd been through his drawers until the sight of herself reflected in his windows made her pause.

And then she'd come looking for him.

"I was going through your office for the receiver," she said, barely able to look at him, hitching her fingers into the back pockets of her jeans. "You probably knew I'd do that..." She could tell he wasn't surprised by any actions she took, or even disappointed. "I guess you don't care right now. **Any**way I'm sorry. I just ... I just want to know that you're alright. Are you?"

"I'm fucking terrific."

"And I want you to know that I agree with you."

He put down his drink slowly, set his mouth in that way she hated, cocking his head forward.

"We should be together in this." In this small room it was growing unbearable, and because Gene said nothing and his look told her nothing she edged around the table to stand over him. Her knee shook against his.

"My ability to help you may be limited quite soon..."

"I can't stop thinking about you. I mean I think about you. I have..." The thought that she'd made a mistake was already crossing her face. "I **want** to be in this with you."

_Say something._ She held her breath, pushed the hair from her eyes as she looked down at him. But he pushed his chair back away from her and went around the other side of the desk to the door.

Slammed it shut with a bang that echoed up the stairwell.

"About time," he said and pulled her out from the shelter of the desk. Her top was damp and she took it off as he undid her jeans, his own shirt. She kissed him, wanted her arms about his waist, but it was like he'd been freed from his tiredness suddenly.

Files spilled across the desk as he lifted her onto it, knocking the whisky bottle over – it fell with a heavy throng onto the carpet. Gene kicked it away, kneeing her legs open, arms tangled with hers as they both lurched for support from the desk.

He elbowed her breasts in his roughness to get closer.

_Be gentle_, she thought . But no, it was too hot for that. His skin felt so cool despite the carnival heat about them and she wanted another kiss. But he seemed rushed by her movements under him, doing nothing else than jerking his trousers down before his hands went back to her body, lifting her knees to get her closer, on the balls of his feet as he began to fuck her. She laughed as he kicked off his shoes one at a time – he swore at the sweat dripping into his eyes, the flyaway hair of his fringe that suddenly irritated him.

"Let me." She stroked his hair back from his face, her fingers curling and straightening. The kindness in the gesture disappeared because he leaned into her and she fell onto her back, scraped her elbows. Him swallowing words that she wanted to hear. Nevermind. Alex grabbed out at his hips to pull him closer. Both of them became silent until the buzzing sound made by the bulb in the orange light grew too great.


	6. Chapter 6

_**VI**_

**The words to Temptation by New Order do not belong to me.**

"God, I'm going to turn that fucking thing off." Gene shuffled to the door and went to flick the blinking light switch, sucking in deep breaths so she couldn't see how winded he was. He turned back at her – she was only panting a little, looking down at her clothes, fumbling with the buttons because her hands shook. Mascara a little smudged under her eye; it just deepened the expression in them. He couldn't read it.

Neither of them said a word – he didn't turn the light off.

Still she was doing up those buttons, but looking at him now and he realised she seemed close to tears. She held her arm out to him, and he didn't know what it meant.

_Fuck._

Her shirt came off again and he sank down to his knees, mouth against her breast. Minutes later they heard thumping steps in the stairwell, strained to listen. The steps were going up, shuffling away into softness. It was fine.

_Oh god_. He could hardly breathe and they rested against each other as the room grew more and more unbearably hot. His hands on her hips. Seconds ticked by and Alex reached up a finger to trace it around the edge of his mouth, couldn't stop herself from joking. "So, you're open for business now?"

He put up a hand, a 'give me a minute' gesture, groaning because her breasts pressed against his chest. "You're trying to kill me, Bolls."

"Gene."

"Helloooo…" came a voice from outside the door. They froze and then scrambled for their clothes; Alex shaking as she pulled her jeans on, falling into him as he groped for his shirt and tie. _Fuck fuck fuck_, they both whispered.

"It's just the cleaner, love." And the cleaner opened the door, and walked right into the two of them, oblivious it seemed or practiced in being so. Gene almost ran out of the room, and up the stairs, clattering and hauling himself up by hands on the rail. He waited for her the next floor up, finally had the chance to catch his breath.

"Bolls." Alex. Minutes passed and he began to worry. _Fucksake_. More minutes passed.

Finally Alex walked up the stairs slowly – taking her time. The sound of the vacuum cleaner increasing and decreasing as the cleaner opened and shut the door into the stairwell carelessly. She was waving Hunt's notepad at him.

"Thanks." Hunt reached out for it, but she turned away a bit and flicked through the pages, held out her elbow casually to fend him off. Most pages had a sketch or two on them, some were crossed out. Alex studied one for a minute. "I think that one's my favourite." And she held out the note pad, her hand over the stick figures.

He noticed how muddy the stairs were and he put an arm around her for the next three flights until they reached the ground floor and the rush of unsettling cold air through the front doors. Viv calling a good night to them in the background.

So what happened now?

"I err … have a small thing to tie up back up …" Words were disappearing. Did he have a job still? Didn't care. Was she annoyed about the notepad? Was she going to brush him off again?

Oh. She shuffled a bit.

"Make me some dinner," he blurted out and looked away from the quizzical smile on her face. "What can you cook?"

"Umm. I've got nothing. There's only cabbage and cheese in the fridge." She jumped a little at the ferocious clap on the back he gave her as he turned.

"My favourite. I won't be long." _Fuck me, I'm shaking a bit. It's the bloody cold_.

* * *

_This is for my future._

Hunt stood in Vanderzee's office, in the dark again. Looking for the place to plant the second bug. It was hard to know where – _I'm a bit tricky, but he's a bit tricky too._ Tricky. Dutch. Manc. Little. Bastard.

He pulled a piece of paper from out of his pocket – dialled the number on it, the one he'd stopped Drake from calling.

"Hello?"

He took a chance. "Is Mr Roseberry-Sykes available?"

"Who's calling please?"

Hunt hung up.

* * *

Alex was watching television in the dark when he opened the door to her flat and let himself in. She'd done nothing about getting dinner and she could see he actually felt relief at that. Maybe all those years with his wife back in Manchester, he'd sat at the dinner table in silence with her, feeling even more guilty because she'd always taken the trouble of cooking proper meals. Well cooked, well stuffed. Alex couldn't do that. That one date they'd had – it came back to her now – downstairs in Luigi's with the conversation unbelievably awkward until the euphoria of going home overcame her and she'd started to be honest with Hunt. She'd thought then she was _going home_. And she'd blithely brushed off his still-born attempt at seduction.

She'd had bought a bottle of wine from Luigi's and sipped it as he took his coat off quite casually and sat down beside her heavily. Gene placed his own bottle of Chianti on the coffee table. "Where's me cabbage and cheese?"

She nodded to the fridge, eyes still on the television. Somewhere else in London, in someone else's patch, students were rioting. Protesting, she corrected herself as she focused on the screen. Getting in the camera's face, pointing fingers at the viewers. Some other DCI's problem tonight.

He made to turn the television off, but she put a finger to her lips. Shhh. "This place could be bugged again already," Alex whispered and so he switched channels to music and turned the volume up.

_A heaven, a gateway, a hope  
Just like a feeling inside, its no joke  
And though it hurts me to treat you this way  
Betrayed by words, I'd never heard, too hard to say_

Gene kept his eyes on her and patted his thigh. "Let's just have a night in then. Talk about daft stuff. Come on."

Alex hesitated a bit, but he raised his brows to her, a challenge, and she shifted onto his lap and curled an arm around his shoulders. She laughed but he put his arms around her waist and she wriggled a bit to get comfortable. It felt odd. _Come on. Come on, just come on, _his drawn face seemed to say. He was tired so she began to kiss him gently, both of them still.

_Up, down, turn around  
Please don't let me hit the ground  
Tonight I think ;Ill walk alone  
I'll find my soul as I go home_

"Tell us something." He turned the sound down, kept his arms about her.

"What do you mean?"

"I dunno. Something funny. Something everyone'll be surprised by." He pointed up – everyone being whoever was listening to this conversation. He was frowning and listening in that intent way she liked. _Come on then, just come on._

"I like the way you say 'us'," Alex said finally. "I mean, with your accent. It's uzzz, with a zzz. It's lovely."

He made fun of that, but she could tell he was a little pleased – he poked her chest. "I like the way you call me 'Gene'. You shouldn't, you know. It's insubordinate, but you don't really give a f…, do you, Bolls. I like that." Alex hadn't ever heard him say something quite so gently before, even though he was teasing her a bit.

"Should I call you DCI Hunt then? Should I do this? Would this be insubordinate? Will this get me in trouble?" Her hand slipped down to the belt of his trousers.

* * *

Ray held his hand over the phone receiver. "It's that Russian fella, the little one, the young fella I mean. Must be calling from a pay-phone. He says he's in some trouble. Hard to make out."

Hunt snatched the phone from him, but heard the dead tone and put it down.

"Guv, he said he and the older Sov were hiding down under pier 127 at Woolwich. He sounded terrified that that bloke you had a run in with were after them. Sounded all panicky."

Keys, Hunt said and Chris ran to retrieve them from his desk.

"Right well let's go round these Sovs up and show them the meaning of English liberties." He kicked Alex's desk. "Get your jacket, Bolls. It may take a flash of your tits to snap the poor little fella out of his PTSD." He put his own coat own carefully, driving gloves too. "You too, Granger." And he ignored Ray's whining about the Quattro being too small for five as they left the building.

"Spread out. Granger, you and Chris stay here and watch for any of Roseberry-Sykes' commie bastard friends. Ray, check up there in them boats. Bolls and I will look down Pier 127. Keep your radios handy and try not to look so beautiful, Chris. You're a tempting sight to all them poor sailors who haven't seen a lady in months."

Hunt put his sun-glasses on. It was a grey old Monday morning and the Thames ran choppy past the many boats and the pier that jutted out at right angles to the wharves. He stepped down onto the sludgy strip of beach and waited for Alex to catch up. They walked in silence, enjoying the bracing wind in their faces and the slapping sound of the water against the pier pillars.

"Not a bad way to spend a morning," Gene said finally.

"Yes," she nodded, taking off her glasses. "Not how I imagine you in your free time though. Walks along the beach I mean."

"You lost me."

She poked around in the water where a crate had washed up against the sand and pebbles. "Gene, I'm asking you what you do when you're not in CID, in Luigi's or sleeping." She shook at her head at the beginning of some salty retort so he walked on without making it.

"I like to drive is what. And I play a bit of football with those idiots up there and I go home at night, look in my fridge and go out again."

Alex nodded and climbed onto the remains of a low stone wall that ran under the main retaining wharf wall. She didn't react as Gene reached for her hand. It felt sodding ridiculous and inappropriate to be heading towards pier 127 this way, but there it was.

"Maybe we can go driving sometime soon. Somewhere nice."

"Not up North."

"No, and not Brighton," she said with a shiver. "Somewhere new."

They entered the sudden dark under pier 127, heard the sucking whorl of river wash and smelt the dank rusted pillars. Hunt stood for a minute so his sight could adjust, then called out the two Russians' names. After the silence, Alex did too, but when she turned at a sound, a man leapt down from the pier above and grappled for her on the wet stones.

It took Hunt a moment to react and then he reared forward, shouted as someone jumped him too. The man – it was the older Sov – caught him with several slugs to the gut. Another joined in, a third man and Hunt dragged them both over to Alex who had regained her feet and reached for her gun. Ilya, the young fella, smashed her arm against a pillar to get it from her hand. She felt nothing in her arm for a second and then a deep pain, like the roaring of the water slapping angrily up against the pier. Crying, she slid sideways into the water and Ilya followed her. She hadn't relinquished the gun and thrashed to get the man's weight off her.

"Fire it!" Hunt yelled and bent down low to throw the men off – any minute he expected them to find his gun and shoot him. Too many hands, and him slipping into the water too. How fucking many were there now? Like a bear reaching out to maul them, but they kept pulling him down by his coat and with their kicks. He sank to his knees and they held his head under – how long? Threshed about, closing his eyes to the mud and stones, inhaling water, choking it down. Someone stabbed at his hand and he tore it free and finally could lift his head, but they held him down again.

"Guv!" Ray fell heavily onto the stones – had meant to leap, but lost his landing and clutched his leg as he roared and found his gun. Chris and Shaz ran along the beach, their shouts lost to the wind gusts.

The men were gone when they reached them. Hunt staggered from his knees, logged in the water, and spewing water. _Alex_, he saw no blood. She crept from the river too, legs weak and unable to do anything but lean on Ray.


	7. Chapter 7

_**VII**_

He didn't care that spitting out blood left a great trail of gobs from the Quattro to the steps of CID. He'd slammed the car door – remembered Ray, Chris and Shaz were in the back and opened it – felt the freeze of the river water inside his clothes and slammed it again.

"Gene," Alex said. "Please don't do anything rash…."

"Rash? What's the course of action you recommend then, Bolls? Pink tank?" That silenced her and they'd all had to scramble out of the Quattro and run to keep up.

"What was that about anyway?" Ray asked, the first time the three of them had spoken after getting the Guv and DI Drake back to the car and out of Woolwich.

"**That** –" one more spit to stain the steps of CID blood brown – "was a good old-fashioned set-up turned to arse." He looked up. From this angle he was staring straight up into the sky, but directly above him were the windows fronting the stuffy offices of his superiors. That's where Vanderzee was, pacing around his desk no doubt. Waiting for news.

* * *

Down in the research room, the cleaner had vacuumed around the files spilt onto the floor and Alex coloured at the sight of the pandemonium they'd caused earlier. Hunt gave her a thick, bullish look and pulled out boxes from a shelf. Behind were two recording devices; one Alex recognised as the bug she had set up in Evan White's house. The other Hunt lifted carefully onto the desk – he yanked out the headphones so the five of them could hear every word recorded. Pressed rewind and they all stood, crowded together around the table, listening to minutes of zzzz as the spools whirred the tape back to the start.

He pressed play and looked down at his hands, examining them as they listened to nothing – nothing – nothing …. "Hello?"

"It's Vanderzee."

"Yes."

"I can confirm Hunt and DI Drake are headed down to Woolwich now. They received the call from your people and they're acting."

Silence then, "Well good then. Mr Lyubomodrov is right here. I'll give him his instructions. I I don't like…." Roseberry-Sykes had a slight stammer and was talking very quickly.

"Yes Sir Leonard. None of us like it. None of us." Dead tone. Hunt finally looked up, looked directly at Alex. "That phone number you tried to dial belongs to Sir Leonard Roseberry-Sykes." He read the disbelief on her face. "He speaks posh, but he's got his fingers all over the scummiest parts of the waterfront. He owns shares in the warehouses, the fishing fleet. Basically he owns a little army of murdering bloody Russians. Remember that disgusting little bastard who murdered Delphine Parks? We couldn't get anywhere cos he worked for Sir bloody Leonard and Sir bloody Leonard is protected by Vanderzee."

"I don't understand," Chris said simply, but the receiver had recorded another call. The phone ringing from Vanderzee's office and then the click of it being picked up. "Evan White's office."

"Can I speak with Evan White please?"

"I'm sorry, Mr White isn't here. May I tell him you called?"

"No. Thank you." Click.

Click.

"I don't understand," Chris repeated. Ray lit a cigarette, stinking the room up in ten seconds. "Well Guv? What's going on?"

_No_. Alex's eyes said no. He began to speak, but she cut him off, tugged on his arm across the table. "You can't tell them. You can't. We can't put them in danger too."

A bead of sweat on his face – they'd fixed the air-conditioning and now it was too bloody cold. But his shirt felt sticky. She was right. Ray, Chris, Granger. He looked at them now, and they seemed to him almost like children. But then he thought about how he'd felt when they'd come running to save them down in Woolwich, how Ray and Chris had plunged into the water to lift him and Alex out. How they'd wanted to chase the Russians back into the crumbling warehouses even though the little bastards were surely running back to fetch weapons and back-up.

_Don't do it_, Alex shook her head at him silently.

"I don't want to tell you," he said to the other three, ignoring her, "but if something happens to me –" he couldn't think about Alex right now and the panic he'd felt as those bastards' fingers had gripped his hands and neck and forced him down into the water, "–I want you to know."

* * *

Hunt had stayed behind as Chris, Ray and Shaz filed off to Luigi's, puzzled and silent. They'd be like him now – unable to enjoy knock-off time, a simple pint, when just across the road people were plotting and acting. He'd taken his time hiding Alex's receiver again and packing up the one he'd set up for Vanderzee; he had more conversation on the tape, many in fact, but he still wished he could just get all these conspirators onto the same page in his mind. Wishing she'd just go off to Luigi's too, but Alex had been waiting in the stairwell, and she followed him, catching out at him as he nearly stumbled onto the street. Gene brushed her steadying hand off. Sweaty and clammy with cold all at the same time, did he look like he wanted a fucking conversation right now?

* * *

Alex glanced back into CID. "I feel safer out here on the street than inside."

"Yeah." He stepped off the pavement onto the empty road.

There were no cars in sight, just the odd pedestrian shrugging into their coat and bent with the cold, people in their office windows, making cups of tea or staring into space. All bored and happy as the afternoon drifted on in degrees of grey.

"What do we do?" Telling Chris, Ray and Shaz hadn't helped really and she'd seen how confused they'd all been. They'd just wanted instructions – look into that, arrest him, pick him up.

"Alex, I bloody wish we were just dealing with corruption – bent coppers on the take. It would be simple and we could figure it out and collar the bad men. But it's so much worse because it's MI5 with their hooks into us and fucking Vanderzee and whoever else is lined up with him. They probably think they're the good guys. I have no idea how we bring that down."

"We have to take chance; go to the Commissioner?"

"I've met the Commissioner twice. If I knock on his door with our little story of dirty coppers, murders and spies, do you think he'll hold my hand and tell me it's going to be alright?" He made to cross the street again, but turned like he was angry at her. "I can't believe this whole force is just a fucking monkey for MI5. How many of the brass are with Vanderzee? They could all be waiting to see us added to that fucking Actaeon file."

"No, no." She tried to take his hand. "I don't believe the whole force is corrupt."

"I want to hand this mess over and have them weed out these bastards before they manage to corrupt more of us and…" It didn't need saying. "I don't know who we go to, but we have to find someone who believes the Police are the Police and not murdering lackeys for MI5."

The street lights came on – dark was creeping up on them. Hunt stubbed his boot into the paving, looking down as if he was trying to swallow the worry. "God I wish I'd never taken that bloody file from Edgehampton."

"Do you?" She knew what he was thinking. He'd been carried away – all those months back – by the image of himself as a hero, breaking into the unbreakable, getting back out, tricking the spooks. She had too.

Only they'd found out up in Bowland that it was the spooks getting one over them. Everyone could break into Edgehampton, as Matthew Mantle had told them contemptuously. _That's what they wanted._

"You were meant to find it. I was meant to find the other file." The wind caught at her wet hair and plastered it around her face, and she smiled in spite of it. "I'm glad, you know. I'm glad they couldn't make it look like you tried to kill me, or the other way round." No traffic in sight – there never was. No one lingering outside the cop shop. She swayed into him a little. "I don't know why I care so much about that, but I do."

Why did she always pick these times to draw him in? She couldn't tell, herself. It was because he wanted to charge off, compelling them both forward like fast, strong music towards the end. _I should let him,_ she thought. _I know I'm going back to Molly. It's what I want. _

But she held him there, with her eyes never leaving his, and her hands reaching inside his coat for warmth and just the touch of a hand. She could feel the reluctance and tension in his body, wanting to keep marching over towards Luigi's, but she had to explain. What? Half truths that only made him more grudging of this connection between them.

In the real world, she would be better, herself again, strong, decisive. A better Alex. _Here I can't even say what I feel_. It felt embarrassing to even think about stitching together the contradiction of her feelings; being returned to Molly from this dark, redundant place and the deepening realisation that all her thoughts were filling up with him. His angry voice, his complaints, joking, taking her into his confidence. Pulling her back here. _I don't want to care about you but I'm starting to worry that when I return to Molly, that's all I'll do. _

She couldn't say it, but shook with the thought that she had nothing but minutes left with him now.

"Gene."

* * *

"No." And he stood back, hands straining inside his gloves. "I don't want to hear it again…" Hunt nodded past her head. "I know what you're going to say and it ends with being fond of me and grateful and that rubbish. Like last fucking year when you went on about leaving, waltzing off into the sunset to pick up your daughter. I just want you to know that I ain't doing this so you can think fondly of me from wherever the fuck you want to go back to."

_It's not **like **that now_, her expression said.

"Why can't you look at my actions? All this time what have I been doing? There are so many blokes in this life who will talk a good game. I am just doing this so …" No he couldn't say it. "Just look at my actions."

"I do," Alex protested, tears dripping off her lips now. "You're wanting me to wish for the impossible. And…"

"Yeah, well forget it." He did break the contact then and hurried across the street to Luigi's steps. Alex followed.

"Gene. Whatever happens to us, I just want you to know…"

His hands were on the rail, one foot on the step. "For all I just said about wanting the Met clean and rid of those murdering spies…" – he looked as if he were admitting a crime – "I really just want this over and done with for us. I am the only man for you. You've doubted me so many times, and I still think sometimes that you… I don't mind." Below him were the inviting warmth and candlelight, above, she was framed by the shrill, judging white street lights. Her features inky and deep, like that black and white photograph of them both, buried deep under boxes in his wardrobe. "I am the only man for you."

There, his mouth was bitter. "I said it. And yeah, I know… you think of me fondly." Hunt went down every step quickly, bang through the door.


	8. Chapter 8

_**VIII**_

The first thing that Vanderzee's men did was surround DCI Hunt's table and kick the box with the bugging equipment out from under a chair. Vanderzee himself entered the restaurant, noted Alex had already gone up the internal stairs to her flat, and DS Carling about to throw a haymaker.

He'd briefed his men well and they just concentrated on wrestling away the box, prizing Chris's fingers off it. Vanderzee clicked his finger towards the stereo and Luigi turned it off hurriedly, leaving the battering roars of the West Ham crowd on the television to fill the room.

Diners turned in their chairs as Hunt stood up to face him, both equally calm amid the pandemonium.

"DS Carling, you work for the Metropolitan Police, not DCI Hunt." Vanderzee said after the men had pushed him down into his chair. "DCI Hunt, you're suspended for insubordination."

* * *

Alex struggled with her keys and only managed to snatch up the phone receiver on the eighth ring. Hello? Silence. _Come on, Layton._

"It's Evan, Alex. I'm sorry, Alex. I've put you in danger and you've got to listen to me."

"I can't talk on this phone."

"Meet me then. Has to be now. Anywhere."

"Pier 17," she said without hesitation.

* * *

"Yes oh well, fuck off back to your office, George fucking Smiley," Hunt shouted across the street; Vanderzee turned around. Hunt had guessed the man couldn't walk away from an insult. "Bet you've got some calls to make to your spy masters. That's what you pet poodles do, isn't it? Ask them whether your next move is to scratch your arse or have another pot at me."

The wind had stirred up the bristly black strands of his hair and Vanderzee realised he'd come out without his hat. He crossed the street, coming closer than he liked so that the men behind him couldn't hear their conversation. A few shadows appeared in the lit windows of CID to see what the fuss was and Hunt looked up at them. "I doubt you've got them all in your payroll. Wonder what they'll make of you when you get caught out. Shall we play everyone the tape of you calling Roseberry-Sykes to arrange my death?"

"You have nothing on any tape. You are out of control," Vanderzee said finally. "Consider yourself fired. Just the formalities to go through. I'll put another DCI in your place so you can go home and plan your retirement."

_I don't care._ Hunt poked his finger at the man's chest, enough to get suspended for in itself. "When did the spooks get to you? When did you first decide it was okay to do their dirty work and start covering up murders? That's what you've done, you know. Murder innocent people." He kept an eye on the men hovering in the background – Vanderzee had picked them well. But this was last chance to speak. "I've known some shite Manc coppers in my time, but you take the prize. You've been there in the background all this time, little coward."

"You're about the biggest disgrace of a policeman I've ever seen," Vanderzee replied, looking away to the side in grey scorn.

"That's not what you thought when you tried to get me involved in covering up all the murders your spooky pals keep arranging." Hunt spat on the ground in front of him. "All that rubbish you talked back in Brighton about my career and saving the Force. I bet you learned that in spy school. First lesson: find a twat to do your grubby work."

It was probably because they now had an audience, one that was growing as passers-by stopped to watch. Vanderzee's face grew blanker as he held himself in check.

"Come to think, you're the disgrace, Adrien. I've never seen or heard of you doing a decent day's policing. You're not a copper."

He pushed at Hunt to get him out of his face. Thrown sideways Hunt punched him as he fell and caught Vanderzee a hocking blow on the side of his cheek. The man tried to walk away, but slipped into a puddle. Scrambling to his feet, brushing himself down, as if he could brush water off. His men grappled Hunt back up to his feet. "I was going to let you get your belongings from your office, but these men are going to arrest you for assault."

"It's an honour to have let you down," Hunt replied calmly as he straightened and crossed the street to CID, not caring if Vanderzee's men kept their hands on his arms. He met Ray's look briefly before the CID doors closed on him. _You know what to do.

* * *

_

Fairy lights strung out a cheery pink and green welcome along the pier. They led to the river cruise boat where Alex had first woken up in 1981. Aboard, faint music played and a few waiters pottered about the deck, setting up for another party of city bankers, lawyers and tarts. The river water lapped gently against the pier and a light rain pittered down between the white railings.

_I'm lying underneath here, right now_, Alex thought as she paced back and forth on the unsteady planks. She could remember every word Layton had said into his mobile phone as he'd nudged her, gun in hand, down from the beach to this spot.

"_Yeah well you're going to have to listen, because I've got a piece of your past standing right here in front of me … Tim and Caroline Price's daughter. And I'm going to tell her the truth – why her parents died."_

Where was he, she thought, beginning to feel panic. It had been an hour and Evan had sounded so urgent. It was likely a trap, she knew that, and it was so stupid of her not to have found Hunt downstairs in Luigi's and told him. She knew that now as more minutes passed.

"Alex."

Evan, just Evan. She couldn't help it – she burst into a desperate smile. He'd shaved off his beard and he seemed so much younger, just like she remembered as a kid: too youthful to be the one nodding along solemnly at her parent and teacher visit, or straining his voice to get order as he coached her girls' soccer team.

Evan hurrying in that worried way he had. He was waving and looked a little unsure himself on the unsteady pier. "Alex, Arthur Layton broke into my house today. He told me he's been phoning you and visiting you." Evan put out hands to her, but then drew them back. "He's a dangerous man. I can't believe I helped to get him out of prison." He put a hand to the railing. "I honestly thought he would disappear."

"Evan, tell me the truth. I've been through a lot. Tell me about the Prices' death. What did you do?" _It's okay,_ she thought. _It's okay, but I have to know_.

He stepped away from the railing, out of the glare of the frivolous lights. He could tell now that Layton hadn't lied about his visits to Alex. She knew. She knew some of it. "I did a bad thing. I shouldn't have listened to Tim."

"You helped Tim Price with the car bomb?"

"I'm making it right," he pressed on, as if to convince himself. "I love her ... Alex. Alex Price. I know what I've done and now I'll spend my life making it up."

She felt the planks of the pier shake beneath her and looked up to see Layton advancing on them, hands in the pockets of a great overcoat. Filthy and bedraggled, just like she knew him to be in 2008.

"What did Tim Price keep saying about Evan?" Layton said, head a little cocked. "Very charming man, he said. Very charming man, like the snake coming into the Garden of Eden." Layton had grown up experiencing little of the complexities of human relationships – how an emotion felt, how a bond felt – but he could classify them as brute acts. "This charming man who seduced Mrs Price." He took the gun out of his pocket and waved it one way. "And then he seduced Mr Price." And waved it the other.

"What?" Alex turned on him, ignoring the mad man. "Tim Price?" Tim Price. She couldn't imagine. Just the photos of Evan and her mother – that's what came into her mind. But Tim… Layton was lying. "Evan, did people pay you to betray Tim and Caroline? You have to tell the truth because I've seen your name mentioned in places.… in files." Evan White ***.

Evan backed against the railings, shaking the fairy lights all down the pier. He couldn't keep them both in sight. "Yes. But it's not like that. I did it because people in MI5 said told me they were a threat to national security. I knew that to be true. I thought it was the right thing to do, but I had no idea."

"They didn't know **anything**. They didn't."

"I'm sorry …. I couldn't put it right."

Ooohh, Layton shook his head. "I don't think that's true. Alex, I think he's lying." As he spoke he moved closer – much closer. "I think he's not a very good actor. He says he's sorry but his eyes aren't very sad."

* * *

Two dogs started a truculent, competitive barking at the first urgent rap on the front door. Ray shifted on the top step, looking back to the street where Chris stood by the black wrought iron gate. A hall light came on and a voice banished the dogs away.

It wasn't a housekeeper at the door, it was Scarman himself. Standing in his suit – just five minutes ago he'd arrived home – he didn't recognise Ray, but his eyes looked past him to the familiar-looking young man at the gate.

"We need your help." Ray's hands were on the tape inside his jacket pocket.


	9. Chapter 9

_**IX**_

"I'm still considering leaving you in here." Lord Scarman stepped carefully past Viv into the cell. Hunt was sitting on the long concrete bench, arms folded, legs crossed and straight. Opposite him two young blaggers shivered in string singlets, undies and bare feet.

"What took you so long?" Hunt nodded a greeting and rose. His greasy hair fell about his face and he ran his hair through it. He noted CS Paulson hovering beyond the cell door. _Wringing your hands, of course._ Paulson had stood open-mouthed as Vanderzee and some officers had escorted Hunt down to the cells, and he was none the wiser hours later when Lord Scarman appeared at his office with the Commissioner. All he knew was that people weren't going home to their wives and children – there were many hallway conversations, visitations to offices and phone calls. The Commissioner had ordered him to stay at work and he'd had to cancel his dinner reservations at the Carcassone. And as usual, the trouble started with DCI Hunt.

The tape of Vanderzee's phone was in Scarman's hands – he tapped it thoughtfully. Hunt could tell he was recalling their previous meeting and Hunt's grandiose speech. "Did you play it?"

"Yes."

"You know why we came to you, Sir."

"I need a lot of questions answered, DCI Hunt. The Commissioner does too."

"I know it seems ridiculous, sir. But it's true. I've got a lot more than just the tape. I've got files."

"Yes … MI5, murder, Greek mythology." Somehow Hunt had known the Classical references to Artemis and Actaeon would interest him. _Drake'll have to bore them all with the full twatting meaning behind it, of course._

Finally Scarman contemplated his square-cut nails and then held out his hand to Hunt, winced slightly as the man shook it hard. "Let's get you out of here."

"I am your man, Lord Scarman. It's good to see you." _You bald, plummy, gorgeous bastard. I could pash you. _Hunt followed him back past the wall of cells and clapped his hands around Ray's shoulders. "Good day's work, Raymondo. I owe you."

"Thanks, Guv. I hope we've done the right thing. Else I hope we get to share a prison cell."

"Err yeah." _No chance_, he thought. He just needed to get Scarman and the Commissioner in the same room – needed time with them… He reached out for Chris and Shaz too when he got back up into the reception. They'd been sitting and whispering among the usual night intake of drunks and sex pests. A ridiculous hug for one, then the other. "Where's Drake?" he asked finally. _We've got unfinished business, Bolly._

"Hunt," CS Paulson called, holding the lift doors open.

* * *

"Did you make Tim do it?" Alex shouted, insistent as if she were the one holding a gun. "Did you make it so he wanted to kill… put the bomb in the car?"

The whites of Evan's eyes shone. "Yes. I helped him. But that's it, because he begged me."

"He begged you because he knew you **would** do it," Layton was like a correcting school-master. "He knew you were capable. Like me. He begged you after you put it in his mind that there was nothing left to live for. Alex, don't trust a word he says. I'm sorry he's lying to you. If you'd only turned around at the Scrubs that day when he was coming in to rescue me, and you were going out. He gave me money and he said I could have much more. You didn't turn around." He liked the idea of this – a momentous near miss. He'd made Evan tell him more than once about it. Now he held the gun across his chest.

Evan was calm, but she knew they both had reason to fear. She knew a word could trigger Layton, or a look. What had she said to make him shoot her?

_I can't remember why he shot me. Don't look at him. _

"He whispered these things into my ear. He told me that if I went with him and planted that bomb that he'd make sure I'd be alright." Layton was wearing so many layers of clothes – ragged, dark jerseys and shirts – that he appeared like a dark matter spectre out of a horror movie. He felt like a ghost too. He wanted to feel alive again.

"Why? You would have killed Alex." She couldn't fathom the look on Evan's face. What kind of man had done this and then spent all those years pretending to her?

It came back to her then. Under the pier, Layton had been talking to Evan on his mobile phone. He'd demanded that Evan come down to the pier, and Evan had refused. How had the call ended?

"_Well, it's your choice."_

_You spent all those years bringing me up. But then you chose to let me die, _she thought_. You don't know it now, but you are worse than you realise._

"I love Alex," Evan said, eyes pleading. "I am a good parent to her. You know it. You saw them both – they never took care of Alex like I do now. Caroline didn't love her own daughter. So many times she left that little girl because there'd be some client that needed bailing, or some work she needed to go into the office to complete."

_You're going to let me die, and you're going to spend the rest of your life lying to Molly. Telling her lies about me. Telling her I didn't love her._

"I will dedicate my life to her, and I will make up for it."

"Stop lying to me!" Alex tried to stop herself from saying anything else, but at that moment she could have taken the gun and shot Evan herself.

* * *

As he reached out for the door to the research room he tripped, swear words echoing up the stairwell. Puffing because he'd bolted off so fast. Yes of course. Ripped the boxes away from the wall and couldn't get to the receiver fast enough. Yes it was still recording Evan's telephone. Fingers fumbling with the buttons, feeling sick at the endless rewinding tape spools. Come on, come on, come on.

It was just a feeling. He was wanted up stairs to help explain the conversations on the tape. Scarman and the Commissioner – what would they think at him running off? He should be up there. What if Vanderzee got to them first and told them a pack of lies?

It was just a feeling. _She's probably at home._ But she hadn't answered her phone there. _Dozy bird. Getting drunk downstairs and talking bollocks._ But Luigi hadn't seen her since she'd come in just before the arrival of Vanderzee and his men.

The tape clicked, crackled.

"_It's Evan, Alex. I'm sorry, Alex. I've put you in danger and you've got to listen to me."

* * *

_

Layton hadn't eaten in a day or so. Suddenly he felt he might collapse. Him. Her. They were exhausting him with their accusations. The gun felt so heavy. The loveliness, the satisfaction, of the choices before him was wearing off. Those choices had made him feel full. Now he had a headache and he put one shaky hand to his forehead to try and pressure the pain away.

On the one hand Evan had made him promises, and Evan had not kept them. _He is a snake._ The strength of that conviction – he shook the gun at Evan even as he thought about all the promises Evan had made. _I was supposed to get my empire back._

On the other, there was Alex. Sometimes he imagined… No, that was exhausting to think about as well. What had she called him? He'd never forget that_._

_Loser._

Layton felt the pier shake. Someone was coming behind him, still far enough away that he couldn't make anything out but a shadow when he glanced back over his shoulder. Someone was coming. The fairy lights shook.

He still had choices. Alex was looking past him – there was something on her lips and Layton could feel the vibrations in the planks get stronger.

Alex held out her arms, looked at him. _Don't look at me._

"Layton!" Evan yelled out. "Like we promised!"

_Yeah. One choice now._ He shot at her without aiming and climbed over the railings, enjoying the short fall into the dark river.


	10. Chapter 10

_**X**_

"Alex. Hello, Alex."

Why were they being so rough? She blinked. That was all she could do. She felt herself trying to move and just blinking. Blinking wildly as a man crouched down over her, blocking out the light above. The man was half-smiling as if he was fascinated.

"Alex. That's good. Open your eyes, eh."

The man switched his gaze constantly between her and a man hovering somewhere away from him. "Okay, she's going again. Yeah, the BP. C'mon Alex, stay with it." His voice changed when he talked to the other man.

Beams, rotten beams up above the man's head. He was still smiling at her and then serious every time he looked away. The reflective stripes on his jacket, the things he was telling her... it was dazzling.

He moved and she saw the light scattered down between the beams. Dazzling.

* * *

The shrieks of the children from the daycare centre four houses away roused her. Alex heard them before she woke up completely and she tried to get up too quickly. She'd just sat down for a moment on the patio steps and now found herself slumped against a post. How had she gone to sleep so accidentally? There was a cold cup of coffee beside her.

She had no idea of the time but felt the weak, wintry sun on her face and knew it was still early afternoon. Over the garden wall the neighbours' teenage kids were playing their wake-up music. She could see them in their conservatory, standing around in their boxers and jeans, lighting up cigarettes as soon as they woke, cranking the music volume. _Dis is for da wreckers and da haterzzz... _

Without looking back into her own house she could tell Molly was in the kitchen behind her, thumping across the tiles in her socks. The phone rang and Alex looked around to see her daughter in the window, holding up the receiver. She was mouthing the name of the caller but Alex couldn't tell. Didn't care and waved her off, turned her face back to the sun. Clouds across the sky, which meant rain. She knew she should probably come inside and lie down in her warm bedroom but she felt happy to stay out here, looking down at her bare feet and the chipped toenail polish that Molly had painted on rather inexpertly.

Her doctors had told her that she might always feel like this – always on the verge of irritation, sometimes confused, always dull like the bullet had bleached the strong colours from her vision.

And in the first few weeks she'd only come to terms slowly with these changes. Perhaps it was because there so many gentle, cheerful people arriving at her beside to help her. Always wanting her to tell them again about what had happened at the pier. Physiotherapists, counsellors, nurses, even the Police who interviewed her about Arthur Layton. He hadn't been found yet, but she needn't worry. They'd catch up with him.

These people – none of them spelled it out plainly and she was so unused to the ameliorating words they used.

The bullet had taken her strength – she could never have it all back. And it had left her in floods of tears as she moved from the hospital bed for the first time. Her life had twisted inwards even as she woke again and again to the sound of Molly's voice and the muttering voices of nurses.

The phone ringing again from inside – hadn't Molly put them off? Hair fell across her face and Alex caressed it back behind her ear. Looking back into the glass patio doors she saw her own reflection before she looked beyond it to Molly. Sometimes she gasped when she saw herself – straight hair, white face, dark circles under her eyes.

"It's Evan again on the phone. Mum!" Molly was shouting, sick of being rooted to the spot with the phone in her hand.

Evan wanting to know again why she had instructed hospital staff to keep him away. Wondering why her first words had been about getting Peter Drake's mother to come and look after Molly. Evan wanting to come over although she'd told him once – curt, with his lies and betrayals still in her head – that she would never let him come around to the house again. He would never see her or Molly again.

He called once every ten days or so. _It must seem cruel_. But she didn't want to repeat the scene on the pier and only one time had she given in to the wearying anger against him, when he'd slipped into her room with a ludicrously huge bunch of flowers and sat by her bed while she slept. All she'd said was, "I found out about you."

_Please, Mum_. That's what Molly's look now said – she was holding out the phone and bouncing on her toes, obviously desperate to go the bathroom. Alex opened the glass doors and took the phone. She turned from her daughter and pressed the 'talk' button to end the call.

* * *

The mysterious case of Detective Inspector Alexandra Drake.

Released from hospital after five days and gone, just gone.

Had he actually swept the metal name plate on her desk into the bin or did he just imagine doing it? Fag hanging from his lip, shirt sleeves rolled up. _Moving on twonks. Skelton, find out where Granger got up to with that berk who smashed the shop window._

* * *

Two months later. The Commissioner announced that as a result of the report by Lord Scarman and the subsequent inquiry into the London Metropolitan Police, several members of the Force had been dismissed for conduct unbecoming.

It had been like thunder rolling in far after the lightning struck. The Met had needed time to investigate Hunt's claims over collusion between its own people and "certain rogue elements" (as they always called them) in MI5. It could have gone badly for Hunt, but for the tapes he gave Scarman and the Artemis and Actaeon files. That couldn't be covered up, explained away. Those tapes had saved him.

Overnight Vanderzee was suspended from his position as Assistant Commissioner, and Hunt still wasn't sure whether the grim bastard was going to actually face prosecution. He'd certainly been arrested later though, escorted from his home during Sunday lunch with his Dutch dad shouting himself hoarse into the escorting police officers' faces.

And what had Hunt got from the Met for his troubles? Several warnings of course about his lack of judgment in uncovering the alleged conspiracy, particularly for going to Scarman instead of the Commissioner. They'd even dragged out the sorry old accusations about what he and Drake had got up to. _Making me feel lucky I've still got a job and the old team here at Fenchurch East._

He wasn't bitter though. Somehow he didn't care that the Commissioner hadn't pinned a medal on his jacket or even bothered to publicly acknowledge his team's role. Instead he'd been allowed to take Ray and Chris down to the club of Sir Leonard Roseberry-Sykes and arrest him as he held his fork over a wobbling salmon mousse.

And of course they'd spent whole days down at Woolwich getting rough with those Russians. Nobody cared what happened to them.

_The wheels of British justice turn so slowly I may be back in nappies again before it's over._ Maybe the whole conspiracy would just dissolve into accusation and counter-accusations before the Met came to terms with its role in extrajudicial murders.

It was funny. They'd handed him the Roseberry-Sykes collar like a fighting dog thrown a meaty bone for following its instincts. It seemed the Commissioner still saw him as the kind of copper who would soon be obsolete, and needed to become so.

_Funny though._

"I made a speech in Brighton about the kind of people needed to take the London Metropolitan Police into the future," Lord Scarman had said a few days back when he'd stopped by CID in that formal, scramble-to-your-feet, way he had. "You're not exactly what I had in mind, Detective Chief Inspector Hunt."

"I was in Brighton to hear you say it, sir." Hunt offered him a drink and Scarman refused. It was eleven in the morning after all. "It was a lovely speech. I took away from it that I should start planning me own farewell bash."

"Well that will have to wait until later." A quick look up and down and then he'd left – as good as a kiss on the lips with tongue when you considered it was Lord Scarman.

* * *

The old team leant over at the corner tables arguing, pointing fingers and spilling pints. Chris and Ray at it again while Granger sat between them with her arms crossed and chipped in occasionally about which of them had accidentally mentioned that Tootsie was a nice-looking lady if you overlooked the stubble.

He dangled his glass over the other side of the bar so Luigi couldn't fucking well ignore the refill this time.

"Signore Hunt." Luigi shook his head and refused to take the glass. He'd had gone troppo since, since… he'd changed the entire menu and had printed it only in Italian. He buzzed angrily when Biro or Jimmy complained about having to get used to a whole new array of dago muck. Why had he been affected? What was she to Luigi anyway? Nothing.

Was it troppo?

"Izzit troppo or loco?" Hunt asked and Luigi turned away from him without filling his glass. _Don't pretend you don't understand me, Giacomo. Oh well_. He focused on the television – two Italian teams playing. "What are the crowd chanting, Luigi?"

"It means, 'You're shit and we hate you.'"

_Oh._ "Sounds beautiful when you don't understand what they're saying."

"Signore." There Luigi was now, wiping away the spilled alchohol on the bar. Hunt knew what Luigi wanted to say and he studied the game for a moment as a Lazio player skidded gracefully into the boots of his opponent. Luigi had been pestering him about it this past month.

"Fine!" He slapped his hand on the table. "Fine, stop your bloody fussing and just give me the bloody keys."

When he was inside the short dark hall of her flat he almost wanted to back out, but there the **fuck** Luigi was behind him, hovering in the front doorway as if he suspected Hunt would start sniffing her shirts and spray her perfume around the bedroom. Nothing seemed to be gone. She had taken nothing just as she had brought nothing. Gene walked through the rooms, not knowing where to stop.

Why did he feel like if he sat down he might be here for days, looking through her drawers, taking his time with the things she used to touch? He'd never paid much attention before. It was just a flat, just the typical stuff birds had in their flats and it wasn't as if she'd actually collected most of it herself anyway. But maybe it would tell him something.

"Signore, what do I do? I'm sorry, but the flat…"

Hunt had just picked up her robe, the spotted brown coloured one that always disappointed him because it was so manly, and in his fantasies she'd worn lace and showed her tits. He turned around quickly as if Luigi had caught him out. He was thinking about how he'd held her in his lap right there on the sofa, his hand inside her robe, tracing a circle across her thigh, sneaking his hand down under the belt and between her legs. Comparing the tan of his hand to the paleness of her leg. She had a way of whispering…

"Signore."

He didn't know what to do with all this stuff that belonged to her. He felt reckless suddenly, angry. She hadn't even wanted to come back for five minutes to get her clothes.

He opened his mouth to tell Luigi to keep it or bin it all, whatever.

No one had told him where DI Drake had gone after she left the hospital. It was generally taken as fact around the office floors that she'd gone to recuperate from the bullet wound with family. And he hadn't asked anyone, and hadn't let anyone speak about it. Yeah, he'd supposed in the couple of times when he'd been drunk enough to let himself think ... just _think _... that she'd done exactly what she'd always told Hunt she wanted to do; gone back to her daughter. Forgotten CID, the team, the job she'd often seemed to hate. She had warned him that she'd go one day.

_What a fool I am, _Hunt thought_, thinking that she'd come around again cos I told her some sentimental rubbish about being her man_. _This is the ending._ _This is your ending._

But he said nothing to Luigi and he let the spotted brown robe fall onto the floor._ I'll decide when to get rid of every last trace of her_.

* * *

Hunt smoked as he sat in his office and watched Biro stick a pen in his ear. Another minute and he'd storm out there and give the night shift a bollocking for letting Robbie effing bloody Hendry go even though the little arsehole had been caught stair-dancing yet again.

He took up his notepad and realised he'd forgotten what he needed to write in it. Flicking through the pages there were his many sketches of him and Drake, all drawn before he'd ever got more than a kiss from her. Stupid that he hadn't binned them yet, but somehow he'd managed to overlook it.

Ripping one away from the pad and balling it tightly in his fist as he tapped the ash of his fag out, Hunt dropped it into the bin and then the next. _What a panting little dickhead I was_, he thought, knowing he'd light a match in the bin to make sure that the likes of Granger and Chris would never get to laugh over them again.

He stopped at the one page – was that the one? Was it the one she'd held out to him on the stairwell downstairs? "That's my favourite" she'd said and he'd quickly snatched the notepad back and shut it.

She'd been a bit snappish about it of course, finding all those crude little ideas of his. But now Gene looked at the page and there next to his sketch he saw a fat love heart, the kind teenage girls drew on their exercise books and school bathroom walls. She must have drawn it in the research room after he'd bolted from the cleaner.

'Alex loves Gene' she'd written inside the big flippant love heart.

* * *

"There you go, little lady."

The courier had a Mancunian accent – Alex looked up as he handed a package to Molly at the door. Then she came quickly down the hall, smiling. She just wanted to hear his voice and she asked him a few questions about the electronic tablet he held out for her sign.

_Little lady._

That had first started it – her going out to the end of the garden to stand behind the ash tree where Molly wouldn't see her. It was the only time she let herself drift into thinking about Gene. She'd go over and over their last conversation, frowned at how inarticulate she'd been, reinvented the scene in her mind so that it ended differently. It's not that she would have blurted out something daft – _I love you, I do_ – but she would have explained that she had no choice. Why couldn't he see then that it wasn't fair to make her feel guilty about trying so hard to get back to Molly, to leave 1982?

How ironic though. _I'll be a better Alex_, she'd thought, away from the visitations, headaches, away from the people who looked uncomfortable or rolled their eyes when she started rambling about the future. Now she had a permanent head injury and although she could still look after Molly, and sooner or later would return to part-time hours at work, she had to cut out so much else just to keep from collapsing.

Perhaps Molly thought that she came down here into the garden to cry.

No, she didn't come out there to cry. After a few days of letting herself remember 1982, Gene, the exact layout of her flat, her desk, Shaz, Chris, Ray, Viv... she'd discovered that if the sun was shining, even feebly, and if she concentrated on that warmth the ash tree and the garden and the noises from the daycare centre would retreat and fade…

* * *

The first time had been only for seconds in her hospital bed months ago, falling into sleep as the sun streamed in through the large windows. Blink. Alex'd found herself lying at the edge of a children's playground at dusk. Her hand had felt along the ground and came across a piece of broken glass, and the glass pricked her finger and she lifted her hand to see blood.

A nurse tapped her arm, feeling for a vein. It brought her back into the hospital room, into the midday sun, into the present. But it hadn't been a dream and she gazed down at her finger and the lingering sensation of the glass cutting.

The second time, she'd hidden away from Molly behind the ash tree. Still not sure if she was just being stupid or letting the damage to her brain confuse her. She'd felt suffused with the sun's warmth again, full of it, struck through with it, and suddenly she'd been jolted awake to find herself standing in a square full of people threading through and around each other in a late afternoon rush. Punks, hysterical teen boys in their quaint outfits, civil servants still trapped in the late '70s, gripping suitcases and Harrods bags. People leaving offices, doors slamming. The tiredness of the end of the working day, a man valiantly folding his newspaper beside her.

Alex had looked down to see her feet in the white boots, the tight jeans clinging to her legs. Without a doubt she had begun to walk, knowing exactly where. She'd walked down lanes with tattered posters flapping in the breeze, past pub doors with the clientele turned out into the evening. She'd cut through lines of cars and buses wheedling their way through narrow streets, and out into a square where the setting sun had coloured the sky over London violet.

She'd stopped once to ask a pensioner if she could just have a look at their paper. The date was April 7th, 1982. A Wednesday. It grew dark as she'd kept on, began to jog even past the empty office blocks, and her eyes had been irritated by the smoggy night air. Finally she'd turned into the street and could see Luigi's lit sign in the distance.

"Mum!" Molly had shaken her until she'd opened her eyes. "Don't do that!"

Now Alex sank down against the trunk of the ash tree, her toes sinking into the soft earth between the roots. Molly had switched on the radio in her bedroom – so annoying that she was obsessed with this one song and played it over and over again up there.

_I want to go there, _Alex thought_, _letting the feeling of that warmth on her face take her away._

* * *

_

"Don't sit down. I told you you'd have to buy us all pints if you let in more than three goals." Ray shoved Lewis off his chair and offered it up.

Hunt'd spent another hour up at the bar, avoiding them again. Now he rejected Ray's chair and sat at the corner table instead, next to them but apart. Still he felt dutiful enough to make a crack about getting to meet Biro's wife for the first time. "Your tits are bigger than hers so maybe you should borrow her bra next time you want to bounce around on a football field."

Biro looked grateful.

Arms crossed, Hunt settled back against the wall to watch as the team worked themselves up over their five-one pasting at the hands of the Croydon mob. He knew he should probably forestall the inevitabe arguments by giving them all a good bollocking but he felt flat, unwilling to do what was expected. He knew much of the uproar was them somehow all doing their bit to get a bit of emotion out of him, jog him back into his old self. That made him feel even less inclined to give them what they wanted.

Instead Hunt ordered them a round of drinks and had a brief nothing chat with Luigi about his new menu and what was good in the kitchen tonight.

"Signore, what would you like?"

"You order for me. No offal. Giving it an I-tai name don't make it taste any better." He'd forgotten his fags, felt around his pockets. Ray was on his feet straight away, offering his packet.

* * *

In this world the face reflected back in the puddle wore too much make-up and her hair had that same ludicrous, energetic bouncy curl. In this world she'd come to her senses in a bus-shelter not far from Fenchurch East and found herself sitting there in her familiar blue blouse and jeans and her white boots. With an old lady watching her thoughtfully. But she didn't have her jacket and she knew there was a story behind that, in this world, and she would just have to forget about that jacket.

She stood in the middle of the street and turned in a circle. She felt electric. There was the window of her flat, dark. There was the smell of cooking and candles, the smell of the cold night air and 1982 pollution.

Alex put out her hand to the step railing for a second, enjoying the burn of the cold metal against her fingers; then she began to walk down the steps to Luigi's. Already she could hear Ray bellowing and Luigi's shoes scuttling and tapping around between tables.

It wasn't that she positively knew he would be inside at his favourite table. She didn't control this world, or him. But she hoped he was. Of course he'd be angry, but maybe as he always had, maybe he'd just write off the peculiarities that surrounded her to her being a little insane. He'd never been curious or questioning. He'd always kept his counsel.

He'd said - right here on this step - "I am the only man for you".

It really was freezing and she took the steps slowly, feeling the chill in her hands. It was an intense coldness that began to ache and it was wonderful because it signalled how real this world was. Just like the cooking smells drifting out of vents, like the faint buzzing sound the streetlights made, and the squeaking of her boot on the concrete.

There was no hurry to get down inside – she could spend months in this world and be woken by her daughter minutes later in the other. The annoying, frenetic song Molly had on repeat would still be playing when she returned.

But she couldn't wait a moment longer to find out if Gene was inside there through the doors. And "I feel nervous," Alex murmured as she reached the bottom of the steps. She still had no idea what she would say to him. But she was so confident that after the hard looks and cutting comments, after perhaps even ignoring her and pretending he had somewhere else to be, she'd get Gene alone and it wouldn't matter.

Alex pushed open the door and cold air rushed into the restaurant with her. Gene was there in the corner, pouring himself a glass of wine as he looked up.

* * *

**end.**


End file.
